Extensive research has shown that few robust results regarding the optimal tax structure are available. Moreover, the stylised models used in optimal tax analyses are not appropriate for practical policy advice. This paper proposes a method of examining optimal marginal income tax reforms using...

This paper examines the role of the tax-free income tax threshold in a complex tax and transfer system consisting of a range of taxes and benefits, each with their own taper rates and thresholds. Considering a range of tax and benefit systems, particularly those having benefit taper rates...

This paper examines the role of the tax-free income tax threshold in a complex tax and transfer system consisting of a range of taxes and benefits, each with their own taper rates and thresholds. Considering a tax and benefit system with benefit taper rates whereby some benefits are received by...

This paper presents a method of computing welfare changes (compensating and equivalent variations) arising from a tax or social security policy change, in the context of behavioural microsimulation modelling where individuals can choose between a limited number of discrete hours of work. The...

This paper presents two 'non-welfarist' approaches and one 'welfarist' approach to decompose changes in inequality and social welfare into three components. We distinguish the contributions of population, tax policy and labour supply behavioural effects. As an illustration, we decompose changes...

We examine trends in the redistributive impact of the tax-transfer system in Australia between 1994 and 2009 using a framework that allows us to separate the contributions of taxes and benefits to overall income redistribution. Furthermore, we identify the effect of tax-transfer policy reforms...

This paper uses survival analysis to model exits over time from two alternative notions of homelessness. We are unique in being able to account for time-invariant, unobserved heterogeneity. We find that duration dependence has an inverted U-shape with exit rates initially increasing (indicating...

This paper examines the impact of macroeconomic conditions on the education and employment outcomes of youths in school-to-work transition. The dataset is based on five different cohorts from the Youth in Transition surveys (YIT) and the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY) and covers...

In this paper we propose a framework to study changes in the redistributive consequences of income taxes and transfers. In contrast with previous approaches the new method allows decomposition of the change in the redistributive impact into four components: the immediate effect of changes in the...

This paper describes a simple and tractable method for identifying equivalence scales that reflect the value judgements implicit in a tax and benefits system. The approach depends upon two assumptions that are standard in the literature concerned with inequality and tax progressivity, in...