This paper investigates the effect of entrepreneurs' personal income tax situations on their use of labor. We analyze the income tax returns of a large number of sole proprietors before and after the Tax Reform Act of 1986 and determine how the substantial reductions in marginal tax rates...

The disparities in American healthcare coveragecontinue to spark many debates.Among those without insurance, theself-employed have been objects of concern since they have lower rates ofhealthcare coverage than their wage-earning counterparts.This studyexamines whether the lack of healthcare...

The impact of taxation upon entrepreneurs is an under-researched area of study.By looking at tax return information, the impact of an entrepreneur's income tax circumstances are investigated in relation to the effect on business growth, the impact on labor hiring, and the effect on the volume of...

The effects of entrepreneurship on a nationaleconomy are assumed to be widespread, influencing new products, prices,innovation, and productivity. Thus, a nation's policies toward the promotionof, or inhibition of, entrepreneurship are significant. This book is acompilation of papers from an...

Most contributions to optimal tax theory have assumed that all prices, including that of leisure, are known with certainty. The purpose of this paper is to analyze optimal taxation when workers have imperfect information about their wages at the time they choose their labor supplies. Both...

This paper investigates the effect of entrepreneurs' personal income tax situations on the growth rates of their enterprises. We analyze the personal income tax returns of a large number of sole proprietors before and after the Tax Reform Act of 1986 and determine how the substantial reductions...

In this paper we analyze microdata to explore differences in the rates at which American and German workers leave their salaried jobs to become self-employed. We document that the rate of self-employment is lower in Germany than in the U.S., and the rate of transition from wage-earning to...

One criticism of the estate tax is that it prevents the owners of family businesses from passing their enterprises onto their children. The problem is that it may be difficult to pay estate taxes without liquidating the business. A natural question is why individuals with such concerns do not...

As economists, we believe that the Second Circuit's ruling, by not allowing the consideration of important information about the relationships between the benefits and costs of alternatives, is economically unsound. In particular, we believe that, as a general principle, regulators cannot make...