Shifting taxes from labor income to consumption is regularly suggested as a measure to induce work incentives. We investigate the effect of increases in the Value Added Tax on labor supply and the income distribution in Germany, which is compensated by a revenue-neutral reduction in...

Suárez Serrato and Zidar (2016) identify state corporate tax incidence in a spatial equilibrium model with imperfectly mobile firms. Their identification argument rests on comparative-statics omitting a channel implied by their model: the link between common determinants of a location's...

In an efficiency wage economy with variable profits, a shift from payroll to employment taxes will reduce unemployment if the tax level is held constant at the initial wage. However, unemployment will rise if firms are constrained to zero profits in the long-run and if tax revenues are constant....

This paper exploits several reforms of wage subsidies in the framework of the German Minijob program to investigate substitution and complementarity relationships between subsidized and non-subsidized labor demand. We apply an instrumental variables approach and use administrative data on German...

Over the 1967-2015 period, net wage inequality has decreased in France by 25%, in contrast to the significant increase experienced by most developed countries. Less well known is the fact that labor cost inequality has actually increased by 8% over the same period. We show that, (a) standard...

Despite unambiguous predictions of the canonical model of a competitive labor market, empirical studies on the labor market effects of payroll taxation provide conflicting evidence. Our meta-analysis shows that varying degrees of labor market competitiveness across places and time could be one...

In Europe, declining corporate tax rates have come along with rising tax-to-GDP ratios. Thispaper explores to what extent income shifting from the personal to the corporate tax base canexplain these diverging developments. We exploit a panel of European data on firm births andlegal form of...

Prior research suggests that start-up costs and taxes negatively influence entry into entrepreneurship. Yet, no distinction is made regarding the type of entrepreneurship, particularly innovative versus non-innovative entrepreneurship. Start-up costs, being one-off costs, may reduce the entry of...

This study tests to what degree the incidence of payroll taxes in Germany is on employment and whether in consequence payroll taxes, in particular social insurance contributions, are the culprit behind the growing unemployment problem. Using industry level data for 18 years (1977-1994) we...