The distributional impact of proposed reforms plays a central role in public debates around tax and transfer policy. We show that accounting for realistic patterns of mobility in employment, earnings and household circumstances over the life-cycle greatly affects our assessment of the...

Most analysis of the effects of the tax and benefit system is based on snapshot information about a single cross-section of people. Such an approach gives only a partial picture because it cannot account for the fact that circumstances change over life. This paper investigates how our impression...

Relatively little is known about the roles that taxes and transfers play in redistributing resources and providing insurance across individuals and across the lifecycle. We embed these alternative roles in a lifecycle model, allowing us to demonstrate what the tax and transfer system achieves...

We investigate bunching at personal tax thresholds over a 40-year period. At kinks, where the marginal tax rate rises, we find bunching among company owner-managers and the self-employed, but not those with only employment income. Notches, where the average rate rises, provide compelling...

This paper provides evidence that finishing school when labour markets are weak leads to poor subsequent labour market prospects, particularly those leaving school at younger ages. Using administrative register data from Denmark, we find that these scarring effects are larger and more persistent...