IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ifs/ifsewp/08-04.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Labour supply and taxes

Author

Listed:
  • Costas Meghir

    (Institute for Fiscal Studies and Yale University)

  • David Phillips

    (Institute for Fiscal Studies and Institute for Fiscal Studies)

Abstract

In this paper we provide an overview of the literature relating labour supply to taxes and welfare benefits with a focus on presenting the empirical consensus. We begin with a basic continuous hours model, where individuals have completely free choice over their hours of work. We then consider fixed costs of work, the complications introduced by the benefits system, dynamic aspects of labour supply and we place the analysis in the context of the family. The key conclusion of this work is that in order to estimate the impact of tax reform and be able to generalise results, a structural approach that takes account of many of these issues is desirable. We then discuss the 'new Tax Responsiveness' literature which uses the response of taxable income to the marginal tax rate as a summary statistic of the behavioural response to taxation. Underlying this approach is the unsatisfactory nature of using hours as a proxy for labour effort for those with high levels of autonomy on the job and who already work long hours, such as the self employed or senior executives. After discussing relevant theory we then provide a summary of empirical estimates and the methodology underlying the studies. Our conclusion is that hours of work are relatively inelastic for men, but are a little more responsive for married women and lone mothers. On the other hand, participation is quite sensitive to taxation and benefits for women. Within this paper we present new estimates form a discrete participation model for both married and single men based on the numerous reforms over the past two decades in the UK. We find that the participation of low education men is somewhat more responsive to incentives than previously thought. For men with high levels of education, participation is virtually unresponsive; here the literature on taxable income suggests that there may be significant welfare costs of taxation, although much of this seems to be a result of shifting income and consumption to non-taxable forms as opposed to actual reductions in work effort.

Suggested Citation

  • Costas Meghir & David Phillips, 2008. "Labour supply and taxes," IFS Working Papers W08/04, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
  • Handle: RePEc:ifs:ifsewp:08/04
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ifs.org.uk/wps/wp0804.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Richard Blundell & Ian Walker, 1986. "A Life-Cycle Consistent Empirical Model of Family Labour Supply Using Cross-Section Data," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 53(4), pages 539-558.
    2. Altonji, Joseph G, 1986. "Intertemporal Substitution in Labor Supply: Evidence from Micro Data," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(3), pages 176-215, June.
    3. Richard Blundell & Howard Reed & Thomas M. Stoker, 2003. "Interpreting Aggregate Wage Growth: The Role of Labor Market Participation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(4), pages 1114-1131, September.
    4. Nada, Eissa & Giertz, Seth, 2006. "Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation: Evidence from Executive Compensation and Statistics of Income Data," MPRA Paper 17604, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Burtless, Gary & Hausman, Jerry A, 1978. "The Effect of Taxation on Labor Supply: Evaluating the Gary Negative Income Tax Experiments," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 86(6), pages 1103-1130, December.
    6. Stacy Dickert & Scott Houser & John Karl Scholz, 1995. "The Earned Income Tax Credit and Transfer Programs: A Study of Labor Market and Program Participation," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 9, pages 1-50, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Aaberge, Rolf & Colombino, Ugo & Strom, Steinar, 1999. "Labour Supply in Italy: An Empirical Analysis of Joint Household Decisions, with Taxes and Quantity Constraints," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(4), pages 403-422, July-Aug..
    8. Adda & Dustmann, 2004. "Career Progression and Formal versus on the Job Training," Econometric Society 2004 North American Winter Meetings 492, Econometric Society.
    9. Cogan, John F, 1981. "Fixed Costs and Labor Supply," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(4), pages 945-963, June.
    10. Arrufat, Jose Luis & Zabalza, Antonio, 1986. "Female Labor Supply with Taxation, Random Preferences, and Optimization Errors," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(1), pages 47-63, January.
    11. Ashenfelter, Orley & Heckman, James J, 1974. "The Estimation of Income and Substitution Effects in a Model of Family Labor Supply," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 42(1), pages 73-85, January.
    12. Agell, S.A. & Meghir, C., 1995. "Male Labour Supply in Sweden : Are Incentives Important?," Papers 12, Uppsala - Working Paper Series.
    13. Donni, Olivier, 2003. "Collective household labor supply: nonparticipation and income taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(5-6), pages 1179-1198, May.
    14. Keane, Michael P & Wolpin, Kenneth I, 1997. "The Career Decisions of Young Men," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(3), pages 473-522, June.
    15. Nada Eissa & Jeffrey B. Liebman, 1996. "Labor Supply Response to the Earned Income Tax Credit," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 111(2), pages 605-637.
    16. Chiappori, Pierre-Andre, 1992. "Collective Labor Supply and Welfare," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(3), pages 437-467, June.
    17. Zvi Eckstein & Kenneth I. Wolpin, 1989. "Dynamic Labour Force Participation of Married Women and Endogenous Work Experience," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 56(3), pages 375-390.
    18. Blundell, Richard & MaCurdy, Thomas & Meghir, Costas, 2007. "Labor Supply Models: Unobserved Heterogeneity, Nonparticipation and Dynamics," Handbook of Econometrics, in: J.J. Heckman & E.E. Leamer (ed.), Handbook of Econometrics, edition 1, volume 6, chapter 69, Elsevier.
    19. Manuel Arellano & Costas Meghir, 1992. "Female Labour Supply and On-the-Job Search: An Empirical Model Estimated Using Complementary Data Sets," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 59(3), pages 537-559.
    20. Gerald Auten & Robert Carroll, 1999. "The Effect Of Income Taxes On Household Income," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(4), pages 681-693, November.
    21. V. Joseph Hotz, 2003. "The Earned Income Tax Credit," NBER Chapters, in: Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the United States, pages 141-198, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    22. Paul J. Devereux, 2004. "Changes in Relative Wages and Family Labor Supply," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 39(3).
    23. François Bourguignon & Thierry Magnac, 1990. "Labor Supply and Taxation in France," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 25(3), pages 358-389.
    24. Blundell, Richard & Meghir, Costas & Neves, Pedro, 1993. "Labour supply and intertemporal substitution," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 59(1-2), pages 137-160, September.
    25. Nada O. Eissa & Seth H. Giertz, 2006. "Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation: Evidence from Executive Compensation and Statistics of Income Data: Working Paper 2006-14," Working Papers 18272, Congressional Budget Office.
    26. John F. Ermisch & Robert E. Wright, 1991. "Welfare Benefits and Lone Parents' Employment in Great Britain," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 26(3), pages 424-456.
    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. Olivier Bargain & Andreas Peichl, 2016. "Own-wage labor supply elasticities: variation across time and estimation methods," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 5(1), pages 1-31, December.
    2. Olivier Bargain & Kristian Orsini & Andreas Peichl, 2014. "Comparing Labor Supply Elasticities in Europe and the United States: New Results," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 49(3), pages 723-838.
    3. Blundell, Richard & Macurdy, Thomas, 1999. "Labor supply: A review of alternative approaches," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 27, pages 1559-1695, Elsevier.
    4. Bargain, Olivier & Peichl, Andreas, 2013. "Steady-state labor supply elasticities: A survey," ZEW Discussion Papers 13-084, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    5. Richard Blundell & Monica Costa Dias & Costas Meghir & Jonathan Shaw, 2016. "Female Labor Supply, Human Capital, and Welfare Reform," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 84, pages 1705-1753, September.
    6. Olivier Bargain & Andreas Peichl, 2013. "Steady-State Labor Supply Elasticities: An International Comparison," AMSE Working Papers 1322, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France.
    7. Olivier Bargain & Kristian Orsini & Andreas Peichl, 2012. "Comparing Labor Supply Elasticities in Europe and the US: New Results," Working Papers halshs-00805736, HAL.
    8. Richard Blundell, 1993. "Offre de travail et fiscalité : une revue de la littérature," Économie et Prévision, Programme National Persée, vol. 108(2), pages 1-18.
    9. Anil Kumar, 2016. "Lifecycle-consistent female labor supply with nonlinear taxes: evidence from unobserved effects panel data models with censoring, selection and endogeneity," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 207-229, March.
    10. Beffy, Magali & Blundell, Richard & Bozio, Antoine & Laroque, Guy & Tô, Maxime, 2019. "Labour supply and taxation with restricted choices," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 211(1), pages 16-46.
    11. Rolf Aaberge & Ugo Colombino, 2014. "Labour Supply Models," Contributions to Economic Analysis, in: Handbook of Microsimulation Modelling, volume 127, pages 167-221, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    12. Michiel Evers & Ruud A. De Mooij & Daniel J. Van Vuuren, 2005. "What Explains the Variation in Estimates of Labour Supply Elasticities?," CESifo Working Paper Series 1633, CESifo.
    13. Michael P. Keane, 2011. "Labor Supply and Taxes: A Survey," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 49(4), pages 961-1075, December.
    14. Peter Haan & Victoria Prowse & Arne Uhlendorff, 2008. "Employment effects of welfare reforms: Evidence from a dynamic structural life-cycle model," PSE Working Papers halshs-00586748, HAL.
    15. Chen, Jianxian & Shao, Xiaokuai & Murtaza, Ghulam & Zhao, Zhongxiu, 2014. "Factors that influence female labor force supply in China," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 485-491.
    16. Olivier Donni & Nicolas Moreau, 2007. "Collective Labor Supply: A Single-Equation Model and Some Evidence from French Data," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 42(1).
    17. repec:eee:labchp:v:1:y:1986:i:c:p:103-204 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Kabátek, Jan, 2015. "Essays on public policy and household decision making," Other publications TiSEM 8cdb178e-ad98-42e5-a7e1-b, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    19. Bredemeier, Christian & Juessen, Falko, 2012. "Minimum Wages and Female Labor Supply in Germany," IZA Discussion Papers 6892, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Ledic, Marko, 2012. "Estimating Labor Supply at the Extensive Margin in the presence of Sample Selection Bias," MPRA Paper 55745, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    21. Liang, Che-Yuan, 2018. "Taxes and Household Labor Supply: Estimating Distributional Effects of Nonlinear Prices on Multidimensional Choice," Working Paper Series 2018:2, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Labour Supply; Income taxation; Welfare Benefits; Tax Credits; Incentive Effects;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
    • H24 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies
    • H31 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Household

    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:ifs:ifsewp:08/04. 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: Emma Hyman (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ifsssuk.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.