Tax credits have been a popular way to alleviate in-work poverty. The assumption is typically that the incidence is on the claimant workers. However, economic theory suggests no particular reason to believe that this should be the case. This paper investigates the incidence of the Working Families’Tax Credit in the UK introduced in 1999, which unlike similar tax credit policies was paid through...

The effect of military service on subsequent earnings has not been taken into account in the decennial debate on the abolition of military conscription in Western Europe. This paper, using a quasi–natural experiment due to the abolition of military conscription in the UK in 1960, provides evidence of the long–term effects of conscription on subsequent earnings. In particular, we explore whether...

This paper uses the SVAR approach to assess the degree of labor market flexibility – measured as the responsiveness of real and nominal wages to permanent and temporary shocks in eight EU member states (France, Italy, UK, Netherlands, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic) with a view to assessing their suitability for Euro-area membership. It is found that for Hungary and the Czech ...

Class Size and Class Heterogeneity We study how class size and composition affect the academic and labor market performances of college students, two crucial policy questions given the secular increase in college enrollment. We rely on the random assignment of students to teaching classes. Our results suggest that a one standard deviation increase in the class-size would result in a 0.1 standar...

Grime and Punishment: Job Insecurity and Wage Arrears in the Russian Federation Using information from two complementary household survey data sets, we show that the dominant form of labor market adjustment in the Russian transition process has been the delayed receipt of wages. More than half the workforce is experiencing some form of disruption to their pay. Wage arrears are found across the ...

Are Earnings Inequality and Mobility Overstated? The Impact of Non-Classical Measurement Error Measures of inequality and mobility based on self-reported earnings reflect attributes of both the joint distribution of earnings across time and the joint distribution of measurement error and earnings. While classical measurement error would increase measures of inequality and mobility there is subs...

Ž . This paper employs the German Socioeconomic Panel GSOEP and the social insurance Ž . file IAB to study the effect of displacement on reemployment earnings of West German workers. On average, wages of the displaced decline only slightly upon reemployment. For workers in the IAB sample in 1986, we find that the lowest earnings quartile, in which Ž . displacement is concentrated, even gains sl...

The substantial literature investigating the links between trade, trade policy, and labour market outcomes has generated a number of stylized facts, but many open questions remain. A common fi nding is that much of the shorter-run impacts of trade and reforms involve reallocation of labour or wage impacts within sectors. Wage responses to trade and trade reforms are generally greater than emplo...

Labour as a Buffer: Do Temporary Workers Suffer? In this paper, we investigate whether or not there is an equal opportunities dimension to regulating equal pay and conditions for temporary work. We develop a “buffer stock” model of temporary work that suggests a number of reasons why ethnic minorities and women may be more likely to be on fixed-term contracts than comparable white males. Using ...