We analyse the determinants of household work contracted in the German shadow economy. The German socio-economic household panel, which enumerates casual domestic employment, is used to estimate the demand for such household work. The regressors include regional wage rates, household income and several control variables for household composition. We find that the demand for household work in the shadow economy is very income elastic. This suggests that targeted wage subsidies, linked to household work agencies, would be very effective in raising the legal demand for domestic help. A wage subsidy of 50% of wage costs could thus establish up to 500,000 new jobs for previously unemployed or non-working low skilled workers. The net fiscal costs of such a scheme are about 6.200 euro per full-time job. In addition, society benefits from more law enforcement and from an increased female labour supply, especially of highly qualified mothers.
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Paper provided by C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers in its series CEPR Discussion Papers with number
4225.
Find related papers by JEL classification: D13 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Production and Intrahouse Allocation H24 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies J23 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Demand K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
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References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Killingsworth, Mark R. & Heckman, James J., 1987.
"Female labor supply: A survey,"
Handbook of Labor Economics,
in: O. Ashenfelter & R. Layard (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 2, pages 103-204
Elsevier.
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