Employment and Taxes

This paper considers the impact of taxation policy on market work. On the basis of theevidence, we find that a 10 percentage point rise in the tax wedge will reduce overall labourinput provided via the market by around 2 per cent of the population of working age. The taxwedge is the sum of the payroll, income and consumption tax rates.This only explains a minority of the market work differentials across count ries. Muchof the remainder is probably down to the differences in the social security systems supportingthe unemployed, the sick and disabled and the early retired.