We assess the labor supply effects of two quot;making work payquot; reforms in Germany. We provide evidence in favor of policies that distinguish between low effort and low productivity by targeting individuals with low wages rather than individuals with low earnings. In assessing the policies...

Social insurance programs typically comprise sick-leave insurance. An important policy parameter is how the costs of lost productivity due to sick leave are shared between workers, firms, and the social security system. We show that this sharing rule affects not only absence behavior but also...

This paper adopts an intertemporal labor supply perspective to propose a test that allows us to distinguish between intra-household non-commitment, limited commitment, and full commitment. It investigates whether, after controling for current and future (expected) wages, past wage shocks have a...

How can public pension systems be reformed to ensure fiscal stability in the face of increasing life expectancy? To address this pressing open question in public finance, we estimate a life-cycle model in which the optimal employment, retirement and consumption decisions of forward-looking...

We analyze the causal effect of the length of the worker's commute on worker's productivity, by examining whether commuting time has any effect on worker's labour market supply. Using the Spanish Time Use Survey 2002-03, our GMM/IV estimation yields a positive causal impact of commuting time on...

In this paper we use a dynamic structural life-cycle model to analyze the employment, fiscal and welfare effects induced by unemployment insurance. The model features a detailed specification of the tax and transfer system, including unemployment insurance benefits which depend on an...

What do labor income dynamics look like over the life-cycle? What is the relative importance of persistent shocks, transitory shocks and heterogeneous profiles? To what extent do taxes, transfers and the family attenuate these various factors in the evolution of life-cycle inequality? In this...

In this paper we develop a discrete model of optimal taxation of married couples and empirically discuss the optimality of income taxation for this group. To this end, we derive the social welfare function which guarantees that joint taxation of married couples is optimal. We will contrast this...

The collective model of labour supply opened the household "black box" and allowed for individual treatment of partners in couples. However, the literature on labour supply has so far largely ignored a broader issue with special relevance to transition and developing countries - the distinction...

We analyze empirically the optimal design of social insurance and assistance programs when families obtain insurance by making labor supply choices for both spouses. For this purpose, we specify a structural life-cycle model of the labor supply and savings decisions of singles and married...