The generosity of unemployment insurance systems is constantly scrutinized by economists. Higher generosity of unemployment insurance (UI) - usually defined by referring to the replacement rate of the former wage - is commonly known to be associated with higher (equilibrium) unemployment....

The labor supply of West German married and cohabiting couples is analyzed using a discrete choice model. Following van Soest (1995), the labor supply decision is based on a household utility function which is determined by the leisure of the two spouses and net household income. Furthermore,...

This paper first gives an explanation of the behaviour which motivates individuals to engage in the shadow economy. It will be shown that people who fear being caught by tax authorities will be less likely to work in the shadow economy and those who earn more money in the official economy will...

In this paper we estimate labour supply using a discrete choice approach for single men, single women and single parents and a joint labour supply equation for couples in New Zealand. The data are based on pooled cross-sectional data from the Household Economic Survey over 2006/07 to 2010/11. We...

This paper examines the labour supply responses to the Working for Families (WfF) package of welfare reforms, which was fully implemented in 2008. The policy changes were implemented with the aim to encourage benefit recipients to participate in the labour market and to address income adequacy...

Die Idee des bedingungslosen Grundeinkommens hat inzwischen zahlreiche prominente Unterstützer. Dabei gibt es weder schlüssige Finanzierungskonzepte, noch können realitätsferne Experimente darüber hinwegtäuschen, dass fehlende Arbeits- und Bildungsanreize das Vorhaben zu einem gewaltigen...

Earning an income is probably the best way of avoiding poverty and social exclusion, hence the recent trend of promoting employment through in-work transfers in OECD countries. Yet, the relative consensus on the need for ?making work pay? policies is muddied by a number of concerns relative to...

Discrete-choice models provide a simple way of representing utility-maximizing labor supply decisions in the presence of highly nonlinear and possibly non-convex budget constraints. Thus, it is not surprising that they are so extensively used for ex-ante evaluation of taxbenefit reforms. The...

Several theoretical contributions, starting with McElroy and Horney (1981) and Manser and Brown (1980), have suggested to model household behavior as a Nash-bargaining game. Since then, very few attempts have been made to operationalize cooperative models of household labor supply for policy...

Income support for working low income families (the ?working poor?) is on top of the political agenda in Switzerland. The current social assistance system is considered inadequate to support working poor households. Labour unions propose the introduction of a general minimum wage, whereas the...