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Welfare Policy and the Distribution of Hours of Work

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  • L. Rachel Ngai
  • Christopher A. Pissarides

Abstract

We examine the distribution of hours of work across industrial sectors in OECD countries. We find large disparities when sectors are divided into three groups: one that produces goods without home substitutes and two others that have home substitutes — health and social work, and all others. We attribute the disparities to the countries' tax and subsidy policies. High taxation substantially reduces hours in sectors that have close home substitutes but less so in other sectors. Health and social care subsidies increase hours in that sector. We compute these effects for nineteen OECD countries.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Centre for Economic Performance, LSE in its series CEP Discussion Papers with number dp0962.

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Date of creation: Dec 2009
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Handle: RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp0962

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Web page: http://cep.lse.ac.uk/_new/publications/series.asp?prog=CEP

Related research

Keywords: hours of work; employment shares; home production; childcare; tax wedge; welfare state; social subsidies;

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  1. Davis, Steven J. & Henrekson, Magnus, 2004. "Tax Effects on Work Activity, Industry Mix and Shadow Economy Size: Evidence from Rich-Country Comparisons," Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance 560, Stockholm School of Economics.
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