Based on data analysis and surveys of firms in four countries, focuses on wage fixing in the informal economy and the role of the minimum wage in informal wage determination. Includes also information on working hours in informal firms.

This paper provides evidence that from 1985 to 2005, two thirds of OECD countries have seen an increase in earnings inequality. In nearly half of these countries, the widening was driven by an increase in inequality at both the top and the bottom of the distribution. In the other half, rising...

In the aftermath of the 2007 US initiated financial crisis, labour market conditions have deteriorated between mid-2008 and mid-2009 across all European countries with massive employment losses recorded in both advanced economies and emerging economies. However, policy responses to mitigate the...

We apply a direct method to estimate tax evasion in Italy, assuming that tax evaders might consider declaring a closer-to-true income in an anonymous interview. The methodology is applied to employed and self-employed taxpayers, combining the Survey of Household Income and Wealth (SHIW) by the...

This paper criticises the view that deviations from uniformity in capital taxation, as measured by dispersion of effective marginal tax rates in the King-Fullerton (1984) framework, are always undesirable. International evidence shows a consistent pattern of tax selectivity. We argue that in...