Fiscal Studies最新文献

This paper provides novel empirical evidence on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the division of labour between parents of school-aged children in two-parent opposite-gender families. In line with existing evidence, we find that mothers’ paid work took a larger hit than that of fathers, and that mothers spent substantially longer doing childcare and housework than their partners. We go further to show that these gender differences cannot be explained by gender differences in the industries and occupations in which parents worked prior to the lockdown. Nor can they be explained by gender differences in earnings prior to the crisis: independently of which parent earned the most before the pandemic, it tended to be the mothers who adjusted time spent on paid and unpaid work more significantly. This is the case even in households where only one partner remained active in paid work. While we cannot fully rule out that these asymmetric responses are explained by gender differences in productivity in domestic work, our results do suggest that other factors, such as gender norms, may play an important role.

Female labour force participation has increased tremendously since World War II in developed countries. Prior research provides piecemeal evidence identifying some drivers of change but largely fails to present a consistent story. Using a rare combination of data and modelling capacity available in Australia, we develop a new decomposition approach to explain rising female labour force participation since the mid-1990s. The approach allows us to identify the role of tax and transfer policy reforms as well as three other factors that have been shown to matter by earlier studies: (i) changes in real wages; (ii) population composition changes; and (iii) changes in labour supply preference parameters. For the first time, all these factors are identified through a single consistent decomposition framework. A key result is that – despite the ongoing emphasis of public policy on improved work incentives for women in Australia and elsewhere – changes in financial incentives due to tax and transfer policy reforms have contributed relatively little to achieve these large increases in participation. Instead, the other three factors drive the increased female labour force participation.

The 2009 Stimulus Package in the US introduced a 65 per cent subsidy for COBRA coverage for individuals who experienced employment separation between 1 September 2008 and 2 June 2010. This paper provides evidence that the subsidy led to statistically significant and non-trivial increases in the probability that job separators enrolled in COBRA, but only among those who qualified for the subsidy. Specifically, the subsidy appears to have boosted the probability of COBRA enrolment among subsidy qualifiers by approximately 80 per cent. Among people who separated from jobs in manufacturing and business/professional services – two industries hit hard by the recession – the subsidy boosted enrolment probabilities among subsidy qualifiers by 60 per cent and 80 per cent, respectively.

Using data for Italy, I show that cash thresholds that forbid the use of cash for big transactions are effective tools to reduce cash income and cash circulation. Less cash income, in turn, hinders tax evasion. I present an estimate of the increase in tax revenue implied by the empirically estimated reduction of cash income determined by the thresholds.

Carbon taxes or similar pricing instruments could play a crucial role in helping countries decarbonise their economies. No country has a single carbon price that applies to all greenhouse gas emissions. The UK is typical in having adopted a complex patchwork of policies that raise the cost of different polluting activities to different degrees, resulting in implied carbon taxes that vary greatly across sources of emissions. We document and quantify these inconsistencies in the case of the UK, and assess the case for greater uniformity after accounting for considerations of efficiency, distribution, carbon leakage and the use of alternative policy instruments. We argue for greater rationalisation of environmental taxes in the UK and other developed economies.

This paper assesses the rationale, design and impact of border carbon adjustments (BCAs). Large disparities in carbon pricing between countries raise concerns about competitiveness and emissions leakage. BCAs are potentially the most effective domestic instrument for addressing these challenges – but design details are critical. For example, limiting coverage of the BCA to energy-intensive, trade-exposed industries facilitates administration, and initially benchmarking BCAs on domestic emissions intensities would ease the transition for trading partners with emission-intensive production. It is also important to consider how to apply BCAs across countries with different approaches to the mitigation of emissions, and the treatment of exports. BCAs alone do not solve the free-rider problem in carbon pricing, but might ease it, and be a step towards an effective international carbon price floor.

I provide estimates of compensated elasticities of labour income with respect to the marginal net-of-tax rate on the 2006–15 period for France, exploiting not only income tax reforms but also means-tested benefits reforms. I use semi-parametric graphical evidence and a classic two-stage least-squares estimation applied to a rich data set including both financial and socio-demographic variables. I obtain an estimated compensated elasticity on the intensive margin around 0.2–0.3 in response to income tax reforms, and around 0.1 in response to in-work benefit reforms, while I found no statistically significant response to family allowance reforms. I show that the difference between elasticities contradicts the theoretical prediction of the classical labour supply model. These asymmetric responses are very robust to a large number of robustness checks. The most plausible explanation is that income tax reforms are more salient and better perceived than benefit reforms. I also highlight an average compensated elasticity of 0.1 for all transfers on the intensive margin and provide heterogeneous elasticities depending on types of people, which could be used for optimal tax analyses.

The Editors are pleased to welcome Jonathan Colmer and Egbert Jongen to join the Board of Associate Editors at Fiscal Studies.

There is a well-established socio-economic gradient in child cognitive test scores. This gradient emerges at early ages, with some evidence that it can widen as children age. We investigate this phenomenon with two longitudinal cohorts of Irish children who take such tests at ages ranging from 9 months to 17 years, using maternal education and equivalised income as our measure of socio-economic resources. The gradient is observed from the age of 3 with tentative evidence that it widens as children get older. We have evidence on a wide range of tests and there is some evidence that the gradient is slightly stronger for tests involving crystalised as opposed to fluid intelligence. Exploiting the longitudinal nature of the data, we also investigate mobility across the distribution of test scores, with some evidence that such mobility is less among poorer children, which raises the disturbing possibility that such children could become trapped in low achievement.