This paper examines the response of husbands' and wives' earnings to a tax reform in which husbands' and wives' tax rates changed independently, allowing me to examine the effect of both spouses' incentives on each spouse's behavior. I compare the results to those of more simplified econometric...

Almost all theoretical work on how to calculate the marginal deadweight loss has been done for linear taxes and for variations in linear budget constraints. This is quite surprising since most income tax systems are nonlinear, generating nonlinear budget constraints. Instead of developing the...

We examine how allowing individuals to emigrate to pay lower taxes changes the optimal nonlinear income tax scheme in a Mirrleesian economy. An individual emigrates if his domestic utility is less than his utility abroad, net of migration costs – utilities and costs both depending on...

Using the Mirrlees optimal income tax model, with no income effects on labour supply, this article shows that the discrete population approach provides new insights into the characterization of the optimal tax system, which complements the previous findings. The analysis is based on the...

We examine how allowing individuals to emigrate to pay lower taxes abroad changes the optimal non-linear income tax scheme in a Mirrleesian economy. An individual emigrates if his domestic utility is less than his utility abroad net of migration costs, utilities and costs both depending on...

It has been suggested in the literature that taxes and subsidies play an important role in explaining the differences in working hours across countries. In this paper I test whether public programmes for family support play a role in explaining this variation. I analyse two types of policies:...

Empirical results obtained from the 2000 Census elderly migration data using a general gravity model of migration flows confirm earlier findings of the ‘same sign problem’ in the literature, which means that the elderly both migrate from and to states where taxes are higher. The same sign...

I document a strong negative cross-country correlation between intergenerational earnings persistence and tax progressivity, and between intergenerational earnings persistence and public expenditure on tertiary education. To explain these correlations I then develop an intergenerational...

Previous literature shows that activation requirements for welfare participants decrease welfare participation. However, the dynamics have not been examined, and often only exit effects are analyzed. In this paper, we look more closely at the transition rates into and out of welfare. Using...

Americans work more than Europeans. Using micro data from the U.S. and 17 European countries, we study the contributions from demographic subgroups to these aggregate level dierences. We document that women are typically the largest contributors to the discrepancy in work hours. We also document...