The assumption behind discrete hours labour supply modelling is that utility-maximising individuals choose from a relatively small number of hours levels, rather than being able to vary hours worked continuously. Such models are becoming widely used in view of their substantial advantages,...

This paper presents results for four separately estimated sets of discrete choice labour supply models using the Household Economic Surveys from 1991/92 up to 2000/01. The New Zealand working-age population is divided into sole parents, single men, single women, and couples. The labour supply...

This paper presents results for five separately estimated sets of employment and wage equations. The New Zealand working- age population is divided into sole parents, single men, single women, married men and married women. The results for the wage equations are as anticipated and similar to the...

It is widely recognised that as the population ages there will be potentially significant implications for a wide range of economic variables, including in particular the fiscal costs of social expenditures. Long term fiscal planning requires estimates of the possible future path of public...

Reductions in carbon dioxide emissions can come from (among other things) changes to the structure of final demands, changes in the use of fossil fuels by industry, and changes to the structure of inter-industry transactions. This paper examines the nature of the least disruptive changes, that...

The aim of this paper is to provide an introduction to the concept of user cost and its determinants. Particular attention is given to the influence of taxation. The concept of user cost relates to the rental, the rate of return to capital, that arises in a profit maximising situation in which...

This paper explores, in the context of the Atkinson inequality measure, attempts to make interpretations of orders of magnitude transparent. One suggestion is that the analogy of sharing a cake among a very small number of people provides a useful intuitive description for people who want some...

The objective of the paper is to explore the saving and consumption responses of a representative household to a range of policy interventions such as changes in taxes and pension settings. To achieve this, it develops a two-period life-cycle model. The representative household maximises...

When measuring inequality, value judgements are imposed, often implicitly, at several stages. In particular, the choice of ‘welfare metric’, adult equivalence scale, unit of analysis and the inequality measure itself cannot avoid value judgements. This paper illustrates the effects of using...

The empirical literature on the elasticity of taxable income (ETI) sometimes questions whether estimated values are consistent with being on the revenue-increasing section of the Laffer curve, usually in the context of a single rate tax system or for top marginal rates. This paper develops...