Given an objective to exploit cross-sectional micro data to evaluate the distributional effects of tax policies over a time period, the practitioner of public economics will find that the relevant literature offers a wide variety of empirical approaches. For example, studies vary with respect to...

Supporters of public disclosure of personal tax information point to its deterrent effect on tax evasion, but this effect has not been empirically explored. Although Norway has a long tradition of public disclosure of tax filings, it took a new direction in 2001 when anyone with access to the...

This paper is published as Chapter 7 of Handbook of Microsimulation Modelling edited by Cathal O''Donoghue, and issued in the series Contributions to Economic Analysis by Emerald Publishing Group. The purpose of the paper is to provide a detailed discussion in relation to the development of the...

The Norwegian public policy debate regularly returns to the private housing market. Housing prices have increased by 200 percent in real terms over the last two decades, a large share of households have high debt ratios, and new home buyers face large costs to enter the housing market. In...

The elasticity of taxable income (ETI) is known to represent a summary measure of tax efficiency costs, which means that further information about the behavioral components of the ETI is not required for its use in tax policy design. However, as there are response margins that may cause biases...

The standard static labor supply model ignores that it takes time for individuals to adjust to a taxbenefit reform. A labor supply decision model is developed that allows for lagged responses in terms of state dependence, stemming from preferences, labor market constraints and adjustment costs....

Public debates about the rise in top income shares often focus on the growing dispersion in earnings, and the soaring pay for top executives and financial-sector employees. But can the change in the marginal distribution of earnings on its own explain the rise in top income shares? Are top...

The purpose of the paper is to provide a discussion of the various approaches for accounting for labour supply responses in microsimulation models. The paper focus attention on two methodologies for modelling labour supply: 1) The discrete choice model. 2) The random utility – random...

We study the impact of child care for toddlers on the labor supply of mothers and fathers in Norway. For identification, we exploit the staggered expansion across municipalities following a large reform from 2002. Our IV-estimates indicate that child care use causes an increase in the labor...

This paper focuses on the measurement of progressivity and the distributional effect of the Norwegian tax reform of 1992. Progressivity is measured by the degree of disproportionality, which implies that the burden of taxes is estimated when income units are ranked according to pre-tax incomes....