Welfare programs are important for reducing poverty but create incentives for recipients to maximize their income by either reducing labor supply or manipulating taxable income. In this paper, we quantify the extent of such behavioral responses for the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) in the US....

This paper analyzes how firms respond to changes in tax benefits for low-earning workers and how such policies also affect high-earning workers. I explore establishment outcomes around Germany's 2003 Mini-Job Reform, which expanded tax benefits for low-earning workers. I document that highly...

This paper studies optimal unemployment benefit levels and optimal proportional income tax rates over the business cycle. Previous research suggests that policy makers should make unemployment insurance (UI) dependent on the business cycle because the UI system can be used to smooth consumption...

This paper analyses the effects of a large reform in the minimum wages affecting youth workers in New Zealand since 2001. Prior to this reform, a youth minimum wage, applying to 16-19 year-olds, was set at 60% of the adult minimum. The reform had two components. First, it lowered the eligible...

Taxation data have been used to create long-run series for the distribution of top incomes in quite a number of countries. Most of these studies have focused on the national experience of individual countries, but we can also learn from cross-country comparisons. Comparative analysis is...

Many immigrants are overqualified in their first job after arrival in the host country. Education-occupation mismatch can affect the economic integration of immigrants and the returns to education and experience. The extent of this problem has been measured in recent years by means of micro...

The success of the flat rate tax in Eastern Europe suggests that this concept could also be amodel for the welfare states of Western Europe. The present paper uses a simulation modelto analyse the effects of revenue neutral flat rate tax reforms on equity and efficiency for thecase of Germany...

This paper quantifies the dynamic macroeconomic effects of tax changes in Germany, allowing for anticipation effects of preannounced tax reforms. Identification is achieved using a narrative approach, which provides information about the timing of tax reforms. An anticipated cut in taxes has a...

The alcohol industry argues that alcohol excise taxes do not reduce heavy drinking because of substitutions to lower-cost products and that these taxes disproportionately burden low-income drinkers. Alternatively, some economists have argued that increases in alcohol excise taxes reduce heavy...

As more and more Venezuelans leave their country, fleeing the economic and social crisis, the number of Venezuelans in Brazil has risen steadily since 2016, constituting about 18.6 percent of Brazil's 1.4 million refugee and migrant population as of October 2020. Past research finds that the...