We formulate a two-period life-cycle model of saving, labor supply, and human capital investments when individuals differ in ability and initial wealth. Borrowing constraints prevent individuals to optimally smooth consumption over the life-cycle and to optimally invest in human capital. We show...

This study examines how tax system design and reform affect labor supply. We conduct an online experiment with 522 participants to assess labor responses to tax reforms that introduce or remove a notch, affecting after-tax income at either the lower or upper end of the income distribution. Our...

This paper argues that the pace to return to work after childbirth is not independent of family values. I evaluate the effect of a parental leave policy reform in Germany in 2007-aimed at incentivizing an earlier return to work - on the return to work of mothers who hold different family values....

In this paper, we study the development and underlying drivers of skill premiums in Germany between 1980 and 2008. We show that the significant increase in the medium to low skill wage premiums since the late 1980s was almost exclusively concentrated among the group of workers aged 30 or below....

This paper presents the properties of optimal piecewise linear tax systems for two-earner households, based on joint and individual incomes respectively. A key contribution is the analysis of the interaction between second earner wage differences, variation in the price of child care and...

This paper analyses optimal piecewise linear tax systems for two-earner households, based on joint and individual incomes respectively. It models the interaction between wage rates and variation in child care prices and productivities as determinants of across-household heterogeneity in second...

In this paper we model an OLG-economy where labour supply is endogenously determined and where we assume that there are two pension systems, namely, a pay-as-you-go system and a funded system. The main question is whether there is an equilibrium involving an old-age pensions system, partly...

This paper investigates the inter-temporal structure of implicit taxes that arise in unfunded pension schemes. We demonstrate that these tax rates are declining over the life cycle. Using German micro-data for men and married women we estimate periodic wage elasticities of labour supply in order...

Green tax reform is unpopular because, typically, the poor are hurt most by the higher prices of carbon-intensive commodities. If revenues from a carbon tax are recycled, it may be feasible to gain popular support for green tax reform. To investigate this, we estimate an EASI demand system from...

We analyse a model in which families may either be “traditional” single-earner with caring for the child at home or “modern” double-earner households using market child care. Family policies may favour either the one or the other group, like market care subsidies vs. cash for care....