This paper studies the effect of Finnish tax reforms in the mid 1990s on the economic activity and tax avoidance decisions of the owners of small businesses. The reforms reduced income tax rates and increased tax planning incentives for small business owners. They applied only to unincorporated...

This paper studies the effect of child-care subsidies on parental labour supply. I use variation arising from changes in the municipality-specific supplement to Finnish child homecare allowance to identify the causal effect of subsidies on the labour force participation of parents. The variation...

We examine the effect of job displacement on regional mobility using linked employer-employee panel data for the 1995-2014 period. We also study whether displaced movers obtain earnings and employment gains compared to displaced stayers. The results show that job displacement increases the...

We examine a subminimum wage policy in the Finnish retail trade sector during 1993–1998 that allowed firms to pay subminimum wages to newly hired workers under the age of 25. This quasi-experiment enables us to compare wages for new hires in retail trade with those in similar industries....

Based on existing evidence, we know little about how the taxation of small business owners affects their economic activity. This paper studies the effect of two Finnish tax reforms, in 1997 and 1998, on the effort decisions of the owners of small businesses utilizing both theoretical model and...

This paper studies the effect of child-care subsidies on maternal labour supply. In the Finnish child-care system, parents taking care of their children at home receive a relatively generous home-care allowance. I use variation arising from changes in the municipality-specific supplement to this...

The tax incidence of consumption taxes across various sectors of the economy is a key aspect when designing a tax structure. However, there are very few empirical findings on this subject. This paper studies the tax incidence of consumption taxes utilising a VAT reform targeted at...

This paper provides causally plausible estimates of the effects of consumption taxes in a service sector on prices and demand for restaurant services. We utilize a large VAT reform affecting restaurant meals, where the VAT rate was cut from 22% to 13% in 2010 in Finland. By comparing with...

It is challenging to distinguish the role of information in tax compliance from other factors affecting it. This paper utilizes a novel natural field experiment design to study the issue. In the experiment firms reporting their VAT were sent a letter asking them questions about their attitude...

Consumption tax rates targeted at specific sectors are often reformed without empirical knowledge about the efficiency of these policies. This paper sheds light on the efficiency issue, the potential for welfare improving reform, by studying the incidence of value added taxes (VAT) on prices and...