We study three budget-neutral reforms of the German tax and transfer system designed to improve work incentives for people with low incomes: a feasible flat tax reform that provides a basic income which is equal to the current level of the means tested unemployment benefit, and two alternative reforms that involve employment subsidies to stimulate participation and full-time work, respectively. We ...
The traditional way of measuring government redistribution across countries is to compare the income households report that they receive from private sources with the income they receive after government transfers have been added and taxes and social insurance contributions deducted. Unfortunately, this conventional measure does not capture “second order” effects whereby income guarantees arising from ...