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The Importance of Tax Adjustments When Evaluating Wage Expectations

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  • Stefan Klößner
  • Gregor Pfeifer

Abstract

Using elicited expectations of future gross salaries, we evaluate characteristics causing German students to make larger or smaller estimation errors. While students seem to underestimate actual salaries by 18 percent, we show that these errors are highly attributable to misconceptions of the progressive income tax. Developing a suitable adjustment procedure, we correct students’ estimates and find that errors decline by 12 percentage points. Conducting regression analyses, we reveal strong connections with students’ age, gender, work experience, secondary school track, and knowledge about student loans. These results change notably if not controlling for students’ misconceptions of the tax system.

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  • Stefan Klößner & Gregor Pfeifer, 2019. "The Importance of Tax Adjustments When Evaluating Wage Expectations," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 121(2), pages 578-605, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:scandj:v:121:y:2019:i:2:p:578-605
    DOI: 10.1111/sjoe.12296
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    1. Briel, Stephanie & Osikominu, Aderonke & Pfeifer, Gregor & Reutter, Mirjam & Satlukal, Sascha, 2020. "Overconfidence and Gender Differences in Wage Expectations," IZA Discussion Papers 13517, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Sam Jones & Ricardo Santos & Gimelgo Xirinda, 2020. "Misinformed, mismatched, or misled?: Explaining the gap between expected and realized graduate earnings in Mozambique," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2020-47, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    3. Pamela Giustinelli, 2022. "Expectations in Education: Framework, Elicitation, and Evidence," Working Papers 2022-026, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    4. Stephanie Briel & Aderonke Osikominu & Gregor Pfeifer & Mirjam Reutter & Sascha Satlukal, 2022. "Gender differences in wage expectations: the role of biased beliefs," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 62(1), pages 187-212, January.
    5. Ana Fernandes & Martin Huber & Giannina Vaccaro, 2021. "Gender differences in wage expectations," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(6), pages 1-24, June.

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