IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpb/discus/311.html

Earnings responses to discontinuities in social security contributions: Evidence from Dutch administrative data

Author

Listed:
  • Nicole Bosch
  • Maja Micevska Scharf

Abstract

We analyse the effects of social security contributions (SSCs) by examining the distribution of earnings close to thresholds in the schedule in the Netherlands. The shape of the earnings distribution provides information on behavioural and incidence effects of SSC. We consider three earnings concepts, four types of contributions and five thresholds at which marginal rates change. The basic idea is that a discontinuity in the marginal SSC rate should cause a discontinuity in the distribution of at least one of three earnings concepts: labour costs, gross earnings and net earnings. We use a rich administrative dataset containing observed payments on most SSCs for the entire working population for the years 2006-2012. Our finding that the density of gross earnings is smooth is an indication of small behavioural responses and is consistent with the results in recent empirical studies that attribute this to the complexity of the tax system, small changes and non-salience. Smoothness of gross earnings challenges the standard incidence theory prediction of full shifting of SSCs to employees. New and more puzzling is the finding of a smooth distribution of both net earnings and labour costs. The smooth distribution of these earnings concepts renders the results on incidence inconclusive. This lack of ‘deterministic’ discontinuity can mainly be explained by measurement errors resulting from the complexity of the institutional system and the rather small changes in marginal rates. A general finding of this paper is that this kind of cross-sectional analysis requests high quality data on SSCs which are rare.

Suggested Citation

  • Nicole Bosch & Maja Micevska Scharf, 2015. "Earnings responses to discontinuities in social security contributions: Evidence from Dutch administrative data," CPB Discussion Paper 311, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpb:discus:311
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cpb.nl/system/files/cpbmedia/publicaties/download/cpb-discussion-paper-311-earnings-responses-discontinuities-social-security-contributions.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kleven, Henrik Jacobsen & Schultz, Esben Anton, 2014. "Estimating taxable income responses using Danish tax reforms," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 66122, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Raj Chetty & John N. Friedman & Tore Olsen & Luigi Pistaferri, 2011. "Adjustment Costs, Firm Responses, and Micro vs. Macro Labor Supply Elasticities: Evidence from Danish Tax Records," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(2), pages 749-804.
    3. McCrary, Justin, 2008. "Manipulation of the running variable in the regression discontinuity design: A density test," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 698-714, February.
    4. Henrik J. Kleven & Mazhar Waseem, 2013. "Using Notches to Uncover Optimization Frictions and Structural Elasticities: Theory and Evidence from Pakistan," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 128(2), pages 669-723.
    5. Hervé Le Bihan & Jérémi Montornès & Thomas Heckel, 2012. "Sticky Wages: Evidence from Quarterly Microeconomic Data," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(3), pages 1-32, July.
    6. Alessandro Barattieri & Susanto Basu & Peter Gottschalk, 2014. "Some Evidence on the Importance of Sticky Wages," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(1), pages 70-101, January.
    7. Lehmann, Etienne & Marical, François & Rioux, Laurence, 2013. "Labor income responds differently to income-tax and payroll-tax reforms," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 66-84.
    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. Nicole Bosch & Maja Micevska Scharf, 2015. "Earnings responses to discontinuities in social security contributions: Evidence from Dutch administrative data," CPB Discussion Paper 311.rdf, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    2. Carina Neisser, 2021. "The Elasticity of Taxable Income: A Meta-Regression Analysis [The top 1% in international and historical perspective]," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(640), pages 3365-3391.
    3. Jia, Zhiyang & Vattø, Trine Engh, 2021. "Predicting the path of labor supply responses when state dependence matters," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    4. Joerg Paetzold, 2019. "How do taxpayers respond to a large kink? Evidence on earnings and deduction behavior from Austria," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 26(1), pages 167-197, February.
    5. Nicole Bosch & Egbert Jongen & Wouter Leenders & Jan Möhlmann, 2019. "Non-bunching at kinks and notches in cash transfers in the Netherlands," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 26(6), pages 1329-1352, December.
    6. Laura Khoury, 2019. "Unemployment Benefits and the Timing of Redundancies: Evidence from Bunching," PSE Working Papers halshs-02057145, HAL.
    7. Mikhed, Vyacheslav & Raina, Sahil & Scholnick, Barry & Zhang, Man, 2024. "Debtor income manipulation in consumer credit contracts," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    8. Lv, Xiaofeng & Yang, Yifan & Lu, Yue & Hong, Liming, 2025. "Deviation signs-based bunching methods," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    9. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/4ljbipbf1o9r3p7pcm99m06e3e is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Germán Reyes, 2024. "Coarse Wage-Setting and Behavioral Firms," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2024_492, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    11. Kosonen, Tuomas & Matikka, Tuomas, 2020. "Discrete Labor Supply: Empirical Evidence and Implications," Working Papers 132, VATT Institute for Economic Research.
    12. Ulrich Matter & Michaela Slotwinski, 2016. "Precise Control over Legislative Vote Outcomes: A Forensic Approach to Political Economics," CESifo Working Paper Series 6007, CESifo.
    13. Germ'an Reyes, 2022. "Coarse Wage-Setting and Behavioral Firms," Papers 2206.01114, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2024.
    14. Marius Brülhart & Jonathan Gruber & Matthias Krapf & Kurt Schmidheiny, 2016. "Taxing Wealth: Evidence from Switzerland," CESifo Working Paper Series 5966, CESifo.
    15. Dirk Foremny & Jordi Jofre-Monseny & Albert Solé-Ollé, 2015. "‘Hold that ghost’: using notches to identify manipulation of population-based grants," Working Papers 2015/39, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    16. Stavrunova, Olena & Yerokhin, Oleg, 2014. "Tax incentives and the demand for private health insurance," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 121-130.
    17. Enrico Rubolino, 2022. "Taxing the Gender Gap: Labor Market Effects of a Payroll Tax Cut for Women in Italy," Cahiers de Recherches Economiques du Département d'économie 22.01, Université de Lausanne, Faculté des HEC, Département d’économie.
    18. Nicole Bosch & Maja Micevska-Scharf, 2017. "Who Bears the Burden of Social Security Contributions in the Netherlands? Evidence from Dutch Administrative Data," De Economist, Springer, vol. 165(2), pages 205-224, June.
    19. Leon Bettendorf & Arjan Lejour & Maarten ’t Riet, 2017. "Tax Bunching by Owners of Small Corporations," De Economist, Springer, vol. 165(4), pages 411-438, December.
    20. Laura Khoury, 2021. "Unemployment Benefits and the Timing of Redundancies," Working Papers halshs-02057145, HAL.
    21. Felix Hugger, 2025. "Regulatory avoidance responses to private Country-by-Country Reporting," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 32(1), pages 271-309, February.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H22 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Incidence
    • H24 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies
    • H55 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Social Security and Public Pensions

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:cpb:discus:311. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cpbgvnl.html .

    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.