Evaluating the Move to a Linear Tax System in Germany and Other European Countries

This paper proposes a comparison of the results of tax policy analysis obtained on the basis of unitary and collective representations of the household. We first generate labour supplies consistent with the collective rationality, by use of a model calibrated on microdata as described in Vermeulen et al. [Collective Models of Household Labor Supply with Nonconvex Budget Sets and Nonparticipation: A Calibration Approach (2006)]. A unitary model is then estimated on these collective data and unitary and collective responses to a tax reform are compared. We focus on the introduction of linear taxation in Germany. The exercise is replicated for other European countries and other topical reforms. Distortions due to the use of a unitary model turn out to be important in predicting labour supply adjustments, in the design of tax revenue neutral reforms, and in predicting a reform’s welfare implications.

Does the Representation of Household Behavior Matter for Welfare Analysis of Tax-benefit Policies? An Introduction

A widely shared intuition holds that individual control over money matters for the decision process within the household and the subsequent distribution of resources and welfare. As a consequence, there are good reasons to depart from the unitary model of the household and to explore the possibilities offered by models of the family accounting for several decision makers in the household and for the potential impact of tax reforms on the balance of power. This paper summarizes both the methodological and empirical findings presented in the next three papers of this special issue of the Review of the Economics of the Household. This series of contributions primarily entails a concrete comparison of the policy implications of the choice between the unitary and a particular multi-person representation: the collective representation. On the one hand, it suggests a methodology to implement the collective model of labor supply in a realistic context where participation is modeled together with working hours, and where the full tax-benefit system is accounted for. On the other hand, the empirical part relies on comprehensive simulations of tax reforms in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom, and allows to quantify the distortions that may affect policy recommendations based on the unitary model.

Collective and Unitary Models: A Clarification

In this note we identify and clarify a confusion that has arisen in the literature about the exact relationship between unitary and collective models and what enters the Pareto weight and the sharing function. We suggest that we should denote as ‘unitary’ any model that leads to outcomes that satisfy the Slutsky conditions whether or not these outcomes depend on distribution factors. In particular, income pooling is neither necessary nor sufficient for a unitary model. We also show that the presence of prices or total expenditure in the sharing rule cannot be used as a test for a unitary model.

Labor Supply of Retiring Couples and Heterogeneity in Household Decision-Making Structure

This paper analyzes the labor market participation behavior of retiring couples in Norway. To account for the unobserved heterogeneity in decision-making structure within the household, I formulate a mixed model by assuming there are two types of households, the cooperative type and the non-cooperative type. I assume that non-cooperative households behave according to a Stackelberg game with the male as the leader, while cooperative households engage in a cooperative bargaining process. The estimation results show that more than half of the households are of the non-cooperative type.*Part of this paper was written while I was working at Department of Economics, University of Oslo and the Ragnar Frisch Center for Economic Research. I would like to thank Eivind Bernhardsen, John K. Dagsvik, Erik Hernæs and Steinar Strøm for their insightful comments. I am grateful to two anonymous referees and the editor, Professor Shoshana Grossbard, for providing valuable comments that greatly improve this paper. Financial support from the Research Council of Norway (project 140082/530) is gratefully acknowledged. The usual disclaimer applies.     

The Impact of Living with an Elder Parent on Adult Daughter's Labor Supply and Hours of Work

A pooled cross-sectional sample compiled from eleven years of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics is used to compare the impact of individual and household characteristics on labor supply probabilities and work hours of adult daughters in two types of households: (a) households in which adult daughters co-reside with elder parents; and (b) households in which adult daughters have living elder parents, but they do not co-reside with elder parents. Labor market entry and market work hours of co-residing daughters are impacted by both the presence and the characteristics of their elder parent. The daughter's age, race, and work experience have differential impacts on labor supply probabilities for co-residing daughters compared to those not co-residing. The daughters' work experience, non-wage income, family composition, and local unemployment rates have differential impacts on the number of hours of work in the two types of households.     

An Attempt in Modeling the Labor Supply Process of Married Women in Tunisia

ABSTRACT

This article is aimed at determining the appropriate model for a married woman’s labor supply process in the presence of strategic interaction. We here compare two approaches: a traditional model and a strategic model. We try to estimate the process using Probit and Strategic models and specify, via structural equations, the advantage of the strategic model in the study of strategic data. Using the two models on individual Tunisian data enables us to note that as contrary to the woman expectations in a Probit model, the financial side is not a determining factor in the husband’s reaction once his wife gave up her work. This result has been observed only via the strategic model because it takes into account the presence of effect of strategic interaction between a woman’s decision and her husband’s reaction.     

A public good version of the collective household model: an empirical approach with an application to British household data

In this paper we consider an empirical collective household model of time allocation for two-earner households. The novelty of this paper is that we estimate a version of the collective household model, where the internally produced goods and externally purchased goods are assumed to be public. The empirical results suggest that (1) Preferences of men and women differ; (2) Although there are significant individual variations, on average the utility functions of men and women are equally weighted in the household utility function; (3) Differences in the ratio of the partners’ hourly wages are explanatory for how individual utilities are weighted in the household utility function. (4) The female’s preference for household production is influenced by family size, but this does not hold for the male; (5) Both the male and the female have a backward-bending labor supply curve; (6) Labor-supply curves are forward-bending with respect to the partner’s wage rate; (7) Our model rejects the unitary Slutsky symmetry condition.

Close to Home: A Simultaneous Equations Model of the Relationship Between Child Care Accessibility and Female Labor Force Participation

Rising rates of maternal employment among current and former welfare recipients have increased the use of non-parental child care. Little empirical work examines the relationship between women’s labor supply and the geographic supply of child care. We combine census data with child care provider information for the state of Maryland to explore the relationship between female labor supply and the geographic supply of child care. OLS and 3-SLS equations are estimated, and the findings are consistent across each estimator: Women’s labor supply is sensitive to the geographic supply of child care and vice versa. These results are important because states now spend significant money on quality improvement initiatives, many of which increase child care supply in low-income neighborhoods.

Economic Dependence,Gender, and the Division of Labor in the Home: A Replication and Extension

The fundamental question in the study of the gendered division of household labor has come to be why, in the face of dramatic changes in women's employment and earnings, housework remains “women's work.” As a possible answer to this question, Brines (1994) presented a provocative conceptual model of the relationship between economic dependence and the performance of housework by wives and husbands. She concluded that the link between economic dependence and housework follows rules of economic exchange for wives, but among husbands, a gender display model is operative. This paper replicates and extends Brines' model by (a) replicating her work using a different data set; (b) adding additional controls to the model, including a measure of gender ideology; and (c) modeling a distributional (as opposed to absolute) measure of housework. For a measure of hours spent doing housework, the results of my analyses are consistent with Brines' suggestion of separate gender‐specific processes linking economic dependence and amount of housework performed. For a distributional measure of housework, on the other hand, my analyses contradict Brines' findings and suggest that both husbands and wives are acting to neutralize a nonnormative provider role when they do housework. Further analyses suggest that the phenomenon is more likely one of deviance neutralization than of gender display.     

In pursuit of a living wage: The ethical and economic thought of father John A. Ryan from the late 1890s until the new deal

Abstract

Father Ryan frequently cited Pope Leo XIII's major encyclical, Rerum novarum (On the Condition of Labor) to lend the support of traditional Catholic social teaching to social and labor reform. Advocating “sane individualism,” Ryan was the first American to argue convincingly that employers were bound in strict justice to pay employees at least a living wage, and his ethical influence gained wide appeal due to his conservative yet fair‐minded approach to distributive justice. Ryan supported labor unions and economic planning as means to gain fair wages and stock ownership for all workers and emphasized income redistribution to reduce depressionary underconsumption.     

Shame,Internalized Homonegativity,and Religiosity: A Comparison of the Stigmatization Associated with Minority Stress with Gay Men in Australia and Malaysia

ABSTRACT

In this study we explore aspects of minority stress by comparing Malaysian (n = 234) and Australian (n = 123) gay men on internalized homonegativity (IH) and internalized shame (IS) in a 2 × 2 multivariate analysis (country × relationship status). Religious motivation (RM) was also included as a variable because of the importance of religion in Malaysia as compared to Australia. Malaysian gay men scored higher on IH, IS, and RM. Single men reported higher levels of IS than did those in relationships. These results are discussed in terms of the minority stress model (Meyer, 2003).