Taxation and Labour Supply of Married Couples across Countries: A Macroeconomic Analysis

S-Tier
Journal: Review of Economic Studies
Year: 2018
Volume: 85
Issue: 3
Pages: 1543-1576

Authors (2)

Alexander Bick (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Lo...) Nicola Fuchs-Schündeln (not in RePEc)

Score contribution per author:

4.022 = (α=2.01 / 2 authors) × 4.0x S-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

We document contemporaneous differences in the aggregate labour supply of married couples across seventeen European countries and the U.S. Based on a model of joint household decision making, we quantify the contribution of international differences in non-linear labour income taxes and consumption taxes to the international differences in hours worked in the data. Through the lens of the model, taxes, together with wages and the educational composition, account for a significant part of the small differences in married men’s and the large differences in married women’s hours worked in the data. Taking the full non-linearities of labour income tax codes, including the tax treatment of married couples, into account is crucial for generating the low cross-country correlation between married men’s and women’s hours worked in the data, and for explaining the variation of married women’s hours worked across European countries.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:oup:restud:v:85:y:2018:i:3:p:1543-1576.
Journal Field
General
Author Count
2
Added to Database
2026-01-24