This paper considers the relevance of the argument that generous welfare payments can induce an “inactivity trap” (where people prefer to remain outside of the labor market, subsisting on transfer payments, than to look for paid employment) using representative data on the French population....

The importance and redistributive effects of indirect taxation in France are measured using an original data basis derived from Household Budget Survey 2001. The detailed disaggregated information on the indirect tax rates was computed for each spending. The obtained medium tax rates for the...