Ann-Sofie Kolm

Does Tax Evasion Affect Unemployment and Educational Choice

While examining the macroeconomic effects of government tax and punishment policies, this paper develops a three-sector general equilibrium model featuring matching frictions and worker-firm wage bargaining. Workers are assumed to differ in ability, and the choice of education is determined endogenously. Job opportunities in an informal sector are available only to workers who choose not to acquire higher education. We find that increased punishment of informal activities increases the number of educated workers and reduces the number of unemployed workers. The analysis also shows that knowledge spillovers give a welfare maximizing government an extra incentive to punish informal activities.

Active labour market policies and real-wage determination - Swedish evidence

A number of earlier studies have examined whether extensive labour market programmes (ALMPs) contribute to upward wage pressure in the Swedish economy. Most studies on aggregate data have concluded that they actually do. In this paper we look at this issue using more recent data to check whether the extreme conditions in the Swedish labour market in the 1990s and the concomitant high levels of ALMP participation have brought about a change in the previously observed pattern. We also look at the issue using three different estimaton methods to check the robustness of the results. Our main finding is that, according to most estimates, ALMPs do not seem to contribute significantly to an increased wage pressure.

Environmental Tax Reform in a Small Open Economy with Structural Unemployment

The paper examines the effects of an environmental tax reform in a small open economy with decentralised wage bargaining, monopolistically competitive firms and equilibrium unemployment. There is a tradable and a non-tradable sector and all firms use labour as well as an imported polluting factor of production (“energy”). A key result is that a tax on energy, recycled to reduce the payroll tax, reduces unemployment if there is a tradable sector wage premium. However, even if energy taxes may boost employment, welfare will not necessarily improve. Numerical simulations suggest that energy taxes in general provide an environmental dividend but also reduce real GDP.

Differentiated Payroll Taxes, Unemployment and Welfare

This paper investigates the effects of payroll taxes on unemployment and welfare in a two-sector economy characterized by market power in product and labor markets. The two sectors differ in their degree of market competitiveness. It turns out that the relative tax pressure influences employment and welfare whilst the specific levels have no effect. Employment will always increase if the less competitive sector is taxed relatively more heavy. This follows from the fact that changes in the relative tax rate have comparatively stronger effects on the wage setting process in the more competitive sector. When incorporating welfare aspects, however, it is no longer clear how tax rates should be differentiated across sectors. Unemployment could be reduced, and hence production could be increased, by taxing the less competitive sector relatively more heavy. This will however reinforce the negative impact on social welfare due to a too low consumption level of the less competitive goods.

Labour Taxation in a Unionised Economy with Home Production

This paper investigates the impact of payroll taxes on unemployment and welfare in a model with household production and union firm wage bargaining. It turns out that unemployment, most likely, falls with a reduced payroll tax in the market sector producing household substitutes (service sector), although the taxation in the rest of the economy needs to be raised. From a welfare point of view, in the presence of lump-sum taxes, it is optimal to subsidise the service sector, and the subsidy should be greater the more market power the negotiating units in the service sector exert in the wage bargains. Moreover, welfare improves with a reduced service sector payroll tax that is financed with higher distortionary taxes in the rest of the economy, if the two sectors are equally labour intensive.

International Spillover Effects of Sectoral Tax Differentiation in Unionized Economies

The European Union has recently proposed sectoral tax differentiation as a policy to fight unemployment. The member countries are allowed to reduce the VAT rates on goods and services that are particularly labor intensive and price elastic. The paper provides a theoretical analysis of the effects of such tax reforms, with particular emphasis on the international repercussions of the policies. To that end we develop a two-country and two-sector model with monopolistic competition in the goods market and wage bargaining in the labor market. Policy externalities operate through the endogenously determined terms of trade. We examine how national and supranational commodity tax policies affect sectoral and total employment and characterize optimal commodity taxes with and without international policy cooperation. Some rough estimates of the welfare gains from policy coordination are also presented, using a calibrated version of the model.

Underground activities and labour market performance

We build a general equilibrium search and matching model with an informal sector. We consider the impact of traditional policy instruments discussed in the tax evasion literature, such as changes in the tax and punishment system and the employment protection legislation, as well as the impact of concealment costs, on labour market outcomes. The model is calibrated to and simulated on the northern and southern European countries, where countries in the south have significantly higher informal sectors than countries in the north. We conclude that differences in tax and punishment systems cannot explain the observed difference. Instead, we find that stricter employment protection legislation in southern Europe, as well as the higher tax morale and more extensive use of third-party reporting in northern Europe, are potential candidates for explaining the difference.