The optimal design of low income support is examined using a structural labour supply model. The approach incorporates unobserved heterogeneity, fixed costs of work, childcare costs and the detailed non-convexities of the tax and transfer system. The analysis considers purely Pareto improving...

This paper examines the impacts of recent Australian welfare to work reforms for low income parents of school-aged children who had been in receipt of Parenting Payment for at least one year. Specifically, the reforms introduced a requirement to engage in at least 15 hours of work-related...

It is widely recognized that childcare has important pedagogical, economic and social effects on both children and parents. This paper is the first attempt to estimate a joint structural model of labour supply and childcare decision applied to Italy. Such an approach is particularly informative...

Paper demonstrates the existence of a welfare trap in the Czech Republic, created by the tax and social security systems. Combining individual data from the Czech Labor Force Survey and the Czech Household Income Survey, the analysis exploits the difference between the available social benefits...

An essential difference between the design of the Swedish and the US in-work tax credit systems relates to their functional forms. Where the US earned income tax credit (EITC) is phased out and favours low and medium earnings, the Swedish system is not phased out and offers 17 and 7 per cent tax...

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...

In the early 1980’s Australia had a highly progressive, individual based income tax and families received support for dependent children in the form of universal family allowances. The introduction of income tests for child support payments based on family income (now in the form of Family Tax...

An essential difference between the design of the Swedish and the US in-work tax credit systems relates to their functional forms. Where the US earned income tax credit (EITC) is phased out and favours low and medium earnings, the Swedish system is not phased out and offers 17 and 7 per cent tax...

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...

In recent years, the US, UK and Australia have lowered tax rates on high incomes and expanded tax credits and family transfer payments that are withdrawn on the joint income of a couple. These reforms result in significant changes in the structure of marginal and average income tax rates. In...