IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/jopoec/v11y1998i2p185-204.html

Wages, taxes and publicly provided day care

Author

Listed:
  • Henry Ohlsson

    (Department of Economics, Uppsala University, P.O. Box 513, SE-75120 Uppsala, Sweden)

  • Michael Lundholm

    (Department of Economics, Stockholm University, SE-10691 Stockholm, Sweden)

Abstract

Public employment growth has been parallelled by increased female labour force participation, while real wages for typical female public sector occupations have not increased. In a theoretical model we, first, show that there is a tradeoff between day care provision and gross wages for occupations for which day care is a complement. It is possible to combine increased public labour demand with public day care provision leaving the wage unaffected. Second, non-parents will be in favour of increasing day care as long as day care productivity is higher than the inverse of the tax rate. This is because the effective labour supply and, therefore, the tax base increase. Third, parents want to push day care provision even further. They are prepared to accept a lower day care productivity than non-parents because day care provision relaxes the constraint on their desired labour supply. The Pareto efficient day care provision is between parents` and non-parents` preferred levels.

Suggested Citation

  • Henry Ohlsson & Michael Lundholm, 1998. "Wages, taxes and publicly provided day care," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 11(2), pages 185-204.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:jopoec:v:11:y:1998:i:2:p:185-204
    Note: Received: 12 December 1995 / Accepted: 17 September 1997
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.de/link/service/journals/00148/papers/8011002/80110185.pdf
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted
    File URL: http://link.springer.de/link/service/journals/00148/papers/8011002/80110185.ps.gz
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Munro, Alistair, 1992. "Self-Selection and Optimal In-Sind Transfers," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 102(414), pages 1184-1196, September.
    2. Alessandro BALESTRINO, 1995. "Public Provision of Private Goods and User Charges," Discussion Papers (REL - Recherches Economiques de Louvain) 1995043, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    3. Bergstrom, Ted & Blomquist, Soren, 1996. "The political economy of subsidized day care," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 443-457, November.
    4. Neary, J. P. & Roberts, K. W. S., 1980. "The theory of household behaviour under rationing," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 25-42, January.
    5. Siv Gustafsson & Frank Stafford, 1992. "Child Care Subsidies and Labor Supply in Sweden," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 27(1), pages 204-230.
    6. Siv Gustafsson & Frank P. Stafford, 1994. "Three Regimes of Child Care: The United States, the Netherlands, and Sweden," NBER Chapters, in: Social Protection versus Economic Flexibility: Is There a Trade-Off?, pages 333-362, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Sandmo, Agnar, 1990. "Tax Distortions and Household Production," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 42(1), pages 78-90, January.
    8. Sherwin Rosen, 1997. "Public Employment, Taxes, and the Welfare State in Sweden," NBER Chapters, in: The Welfare State in Transition: Reforming the Swedish Model, pages 79-108, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Gupta, Nabanita Datta, 1993. "Probabilities of Job Choice and Employer Selection and Male-Female Occupational Differences," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(2), pages 57-61, May.
    10. Gahvari, Firouz, 1994. "In-kind transfers, cash grants and labor supply," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(3), pages 495-504, November.
    11. N. S. Blomquist & U. Hansson-Brusewitz, 1990. "The Effect of Taxes on Male and Female Labor Supply in Sweden," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 25(3), pages 317-357.
    12. Kennan, John, 1979. "Bonding and the enforcement of labor contracts," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 3(1), pages 61-66.
    13. Cremer, Helmuth & Gahvari, Firouz, 1997. "In-kind transfers, self-selection and optimal tax policy," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 97-114, January.
    14. repec:bla:scandj:v:97:y:1995:i:4:p:547-67 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Charles Michalopoulos & Philip K. Robins & Irwin Garfinkel, 1992. "A Structural Model of Labor Supply and Child Care Demand," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 27(1), pages 166-203.
    16. Tor Jacobson & Henry Ohlsson, 2000. "Working time, employment, and work sharing: Evidence from Sweden," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 25(1), pages 169-187.
    17. Munro, Alistair, 1991. "The optimal public provision of private goods," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 239-261, March.
    18. Petersen, Trond & Meyerson, Eva & Snartland, Vemund, 1996. "The Within-Job Gender Wage Gap: The Case of Sweden," Working Paper Series 470, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Alessandro Balestrino, 2000. "Mixed Tax Systems and the Public Provision of Private Goods," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 7(4), pages 463-478, August.
    2. Bergstrom, Ted & Blomquist, Soren, 1996. "The political economy of subsidized day care," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 443-457, November.
    3. repec:bla:jpbect:v:1:y:1999:i:4:p:511-24 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. repec:bla:scandj:v:103:y:2001:i:4:p:625-43 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Iulie Aslaksen & Charlotte Koren & Marianne Stokstad, 2000. "The Effect of Child Care Subsidies: A Critique of the Rosen Model," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 6(1), pages 95-103.
    6. Enlinson Mattos & Rafael Terra, 2016. "Nature of transfers, income tax function and empirical estimation of elasticity of taxable income for Brazil," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(53), pages 5201-5220, November.
    7. Sherwin Rosen, 1997. "Public Employment, Taxes, and the Welfare State in Sweden," NBER Chapters, in: The Welfare State in Transition: Reforming the Swedish Model, pages 79-108, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Janet Currie & Firouz Gahvari, 2008. "Transfers in Cash and In-Kind: Theory Meets the Data," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 46(2), pages 333-383, June.
    9. Balestrino, Alessandro, 1997. "Education policy in a non-altruistic model of intergenerational transfers with endogenous fertility," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 157-169, February.
    10. Simona GRASSI, 2006. "On the characteristics of a mixed system of provision of a private good. An application to health care," Departmental Working Papers 2006-14, Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods at Università degli Studi di Milano.
    11. Sören Blömquist & Vidar Christiansen, 1998. "Price Subsidies Versus Public Provision," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 5(3), pages 283-306, July.
    12. Spencer Bastani & Sören Blomquist & Luca Micheletto, 2020. "Child Care Subsidies, Quality, and Optimal Income Taxation," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 12(4), pages 1-37, November.
    13. Earl L. Grinols & Peri Silva, 2012. "Intervention Efficiency, Incentive Symmetry, and Information," Development Working Papers 334, Centro Studi Luca d'Agliano, University of Milano, revised 16 Jul 2012.
    14. Olivier Guillot, 1996. "Activité féminine et garde des jeunes enfants : une analyse micro-économétrique," Économie et Prévision, Programme National Persée, vol. 122(1), pages 83-94.
    15. Guyonne Kalb & Thor Thoresen, 2010. "A comparison of family policy designs of Australia and Norway using microsimulation models," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 8(2), pages 255-287, June.
    16. Iregui, Ana Maria, 2005. "Decentralised provision of quasi-private goods: The case of Colombia," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 683-706, July.
    17. Lopez-Rodriguez, David, 2011. "The scope of political redistribution with proportional income taxation," MPRA Paper 44150, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2012.
    18. Blomquist, Soren & Christiansen, Vidar, 1999. "The political economy of publicly provided private goods," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 31-54, July.
    19. Thomas Aronsson & James R. Walker, 1997. "The Effects of Sweden's Welfare State on Labor Supply Incentives," NBER Chapters, in: The Welfare State in Transition: Reforming the Swedish Model, pages 203-266, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. repec:use:tkiwps:3030 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Lakhani, Hyder & Hoover, Elizabeth, 1997. "Child care use, earnings, and retention desires of wives of employees -- U.S. Army officers' study," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 87-110, February.
    22. Müller, Kai-Uwe & Wrohlich, Katharina, 2020. "Does subsidized care for toddlers increase maternal labor supply? Evidence from a large-scale expansion of early childcare," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    23. Guyonne Kalb, 2009. "Children, Labour Supply and Child Care: Challenges for Empirical Analysis," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 42(3), pages 276-299, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • H31 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Household
    • H42 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Publicly Provided Private Goods
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:jopoec:v:11:y:1998:i:2:p:185-204. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.