Essays on the Impact of Taxes and Transfers on Labor Supply and Migration
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On the 16th of August, Salla Kalin, will defend her doctoral dissertation “Essays on the Impact of Taxes and Transfers on Labor Supply and Migration”.
This doctoral dissertation consists of an introductory chapter and three independent essays on public economics and labor economics. The first chapter provides a brief introduction and summarizes the essays.
In the first essay, together with Tomi Kyyrä and Tuomas Matikka, we study the combination of part-time work with social benefits. We begin by examining the changes in combining part-time work with unemployment benefits over the past 20 years. Then, we focus on how earnings disregard policies, which allow individuals to earn up to 300 euros per month without affecting their benefits, influence the labor supply choices of unemployment benefit recipients in Finland. We observe a significant concentration of part-time or temporary work in the service and social and health care sectors. In addition, women participate in part-time work more often than men. In the second part of the essay, we find that earnings disregards led to a 17–28% increase in participation in part-time work among unemployment benefit recipients. However, we do not find economically significant positive or negative effects on transitions to full-time employment.
In the second essay, I study how changes in means-tested financial aid affect earnings and academic performance among higher education students. Using administrative data from Finland and focusing on a reform that introduced general housing allowance for higher education students, I find that students respond more to changes in transfer levels than to marginal incentives, with increased transfers leading to a 5% decrease in annual earnings. However, the reform does not significantly impact academic performance.
The third essay studies the impact of labor income taxation on migration. The essay is joint work with Ilpo Kauppinen, Kaisa Kotakorpi, and Jukka Pirttilä. Using comprehensive Finnish administrative data merged with emigration records, we study how changes in net-of-tax rates and gross earnings affect the likelihood of migration. We find a statistically significant, yet minimal, positive relationship between migration decisions and net-of-tax rates. Even for high-income individuals and various occupational groups, the responses are nearly zero.
Contact Salla Kalin
Email: salla.kalin@helsinki.fi
Mobile phone: +358 50 365 4385