The assumption that household income is strongly and positively correlated with a household's real standard of living provides the basis for the joint taxation of families, which has the effect of discriminating against married women as second earners. This paper shows, in the context of a model...

Labor force participation rates of mothers in Austria and Germany are similar, however full-time employment rates are much higher among Austrian mothers. In order to find out to what extent these differences can be attributed to differences in the tax transfer-system, we perform a comparative...

While the consensus in the literature is that the labor supply of married women is more responsive than that of married men, there are indications that this gap is narrowing. Our estimations of a structural discrete choice labor supply model using repeated cross-sectional data confirms this...

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...

We assess the labour supply effects of two 'making work pay' reforms in Germany. We provide evidence in favour of policies that distinguish between low effort and low productivity by targeting individuals with low wages rather than individuals with low earnings. In assessing the policies we...

This paper studies the income of Swedish households belonging to the baby boom generation, i.e., those born in the 1940-50. An international comparison as well as an historical presentation of income patterns is given. However, the main purpose is to generate the future income of the baby boom...

We study the link between tax progressivity and top income shares. Using variation from large-scale Western tax reforms in the 1980s and 1990s and the novel synthetic control method, we find large and lasting boosting impacts on top income shares from the progressivity reductions. Effects are...

This paper explores the association between income and stated views on minimum living standards; that is, views on items and activities that no one in today's society should have to go without. Using data from a large nationally representative survey, we find the rich are less empathetic. In our...

We provide a critique of the standard methodology which bases welfare comparisons between households on deflating household income and consumption by an equivalence scale. We argue that this leads to support for tax/transfer policies that significantly disadvantage low to middle in-come...