Despite the introduction of childcare subsidies in many countries, the cost of childcare is still thought to hinder parental employment. Many governments are considering increasing the generosity of their childcare subsidies, but the a priori effect of such a policy is ambiguous and little is...

This paper provides an empirical account of the dynamic return to work, and how this is affected by taxes and benefits. In doing so we bring the insights from the literature on dynamic labour supply to the issue of estimating the financial return to work and how it is taxed, where the past...

Conventional in-work benefits or tax credits are now well established as a policy instrument for increasing labour supply and tackling poverty. A different sort of in-work credit is one where the payments are time-limited, conditional on previous receipt of welfare, and, perhaps, not...

Despite the introduction of childcare subsidies in many countries, the cost of childcare is still thought to hinder parental employment. Many governments are considering increasing the generosity of their childcare subsidies, but the a priori effect of such a policy is ambiguous and little is...

This paper provides an empirical account of the dynamic return to work, and how this is affected by taxes and benefits. In doing so we bring the insights from the literature on dynamic labour supply to the issue of estimating the financial return to work and how it is taxed, where the past...

This paper reviews how income-support systems affect labour force participation in the UK. The UK's approach to social insurance is basic security, with modest, typically flat-rate, benefits; insurance-based benefits are relatively unimportant. Compared with the EU, the UK has high employment...

Childcare costs are often viewed as one of the biggest barriers to work, particularly among lone parents on low incomes. Children in England are typically eligible to start school - and thus access a number of hours of free public education - on 1 September after they turn four. This means that...

Many governments are considering expanding childcare subsidies to increase the labour force participation of parents (especially mothers) with young children. In this paper, we study the potential impact of such a policy by comparing the effects of offering free part-time childcare and of...

Despite the introduction of childcare subsidies in many countries, the cost of childcare is still thought to hinder parental employment. Many governments are considering increasing the generosity of their childcare subsidies, but the a priori effect of such a policy is ambiguous and little is...

Conventional in-work benefits (IWB) are means-tested, open to all workers with sufficiently low income, and usually paid without a time-limit. This paper evaluates an IWB with an alternative design that was aimed at lone parents in the UK and piloted in one third of the country, and that...