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A key policy problem in most developing countries is the size of the informal sector and its persistence over time. At the same time, these countries also need to increase their tax take. However, this may slow down the formalization of the economy. Evidence on the wages and characteristics of jobs in di erent sectors and on the impact of tax changes on the size of the informal sector in developing countries is, however, very limited. This paper therefore estimates the tax responsiveness of the extensive margin of formality, i.e. the propensity to participate in formal work as opposed to working as an informal worker,for four Sub-Saharan African countries. Using repeated cross-sections of household data and applying grouping estimator techniques, this paper finds only very small or statistically insignificant effects of taxes on the extent of formal work.

This study analyses a baseline dataset collected for an evaluation of a co-operation project that assists trade unions in Zambia to boost their activities. The data were collected from 51 establishments to study attitudes towards unions, working conditions and the views of employers and trade union representatives on each other. The results show that employees have, by and large, positive views on unions but turning to unions when there are problems is not particularly common. Wages are often considered to be too low and assumed to be lower than those of similar individuals elsewhere or even in the same establishment. Regression analysis shows that having positive views on unions per se has a positive association with satisfaction and negative correlation with resign intentions. Union membership, however, seems to be correlated with employees being more discontent with their wages in some instances, though the direction of causality is unclear. Julkaistu myös Palkansaajien tutkimuslaitoksen sarjassa: Työpaperita / Working Papers 307. ISBN:llä 978-952-209-151-2.

Atkinson and Stiglitz (Journal of Public Economics 1976) show that when the government has access to non-linear income taxation and consumer preferences are separable between consumption and leisure, there is no need for differentiated commodity taxation. This paper examines the empirical validity of this claim using consumption data from Finland. The data have extensive information on commodity demand, the use of public services and hours of work. When labour income is controlled for in a semi-parametric way, we find that capital income and housing expenses are negatively associated with hours of work, whereas the use of child care is somewhat positively correlated with labour supply. These results suggest that capital income and housing should be taxed whereas day care could perhaps be subsidised.

This paper analyses the optimal tax policy and public provision of private goods when individuals differ in two respects: income-earning ability and rationality. Publicly provided goods should be overprovided or subsidised, relative to the decentralised optimum, if society's marginal valuation of them exceeds the individual valuation and if these goods help relax the self-selection constraints, formulated in a new way. Optimal marginal income tax rates are shown to differ from the standard rules if publicly provided goods and labour supply are related.

The standard theory of optimal income taxation under uncertainty has been developed under the assumption that individuals maximize expected utility. However, prospect theory has now been established as an alternative model of individual behaviour, with empirical support. This paper explores the theory of optimal income taxation under uncertainty when individuals behave according to the tenets of prospect theory. It is seen that many of the standard results are either overturned, or modified in interesting ways. The validity of the First Order Approach requires new conditions that are developed in the paper. And when these conditions are valid, it is shown that optimal marginal tax rates on low incomes will tend to be lower under prospect theory than under expected utility theory.

This paper examines optimal non-linear income taxation, commodity taxation and public good provision under income uncertainty. Workers’ income depends randomly on their effort, and effort is unobservable to the government. When income is taxed on a non-linear scale and commodities linearly, the consumption of commodities that are negatively (positively) associated with effort should be discouraged (encouraged). A similar rule is derived for public good provision. Conditions for when uniform commodity taxation and the first-best Samuelson rule for public good provision are desirable under income uncertainty are shown to be analogous to those derived in the conventional tax model. The paper also examines rules for optimal non-linear income and commodity taxation under income uncertainty.

This paper examines public good provision and tax policy ­ optimal non-linear income taxation and linear commodity taxation ­ when the government departs from purely welfarist objective function and seeks to minimise poverty. This assumption reflects much policy discussion and may help understand some divergences of practical tax policy from lessons in optimal tax analysis. In contrast to Atkinson and Stiglitz (1976), it may be optimal to use differentiated commodity tax rates, including the taxation of savings, even if preferences are separable in goods and leisure. The optimal effective marginal tax rate at the bottom of the distribution may be negative, suggesting that wage subsidy schemes can be optimal. Finally, optimal provision rules are derived for a public good under poverty minimisation.

We analyse the decision rules governing public employment policy and capital allocation between private and public sector in a simple two-type and two-sector optimal non-linear income tax model with endogenous wages. Results from a static framework indicate that to produce a given amount of consumption the government should employ more unskilled workers and less skilled workers than is necessary to minimize cost at the prevailing gross wage rate. The potential role of minimum wage as another policy variable is discussed as well. Extending the model into an OLG framework with public and private capital, we show that the discount rate that ought to be used in evaluating public sector projects is not the same as the return to capital in the private sector. In particular, public capital accumulation is favoured if capital in the private sector is complementary with high-skilled labour. Therefore, production efficiency holds neither in public employment decision nor capital allocation.

This paper focuses on two sets of impacts of public provision of private goods that have been neglected in the self-selection framework of optimal taxation, the by-now standard approach in examining public provision. We first show, using a general formulation whereby production depends on labour supply of different households and the level of public provision, that there can be a role for public provision because of productivity and wage-structure effects, even if preferences are weakly separable between goods and leisure. Second, we deal with a specific example of public provision of education that provides an intuitively appealing case for the production side impacts. Finally, we address the role of public provision in a dynamic, overlapping generations, economy, whereby public provision may affect efficiency and social costs of redistribution of future generations as well, opening up a way to combine inter- and intra-generational impacts of public provision.