Optimal Income Taxation of Lone Mothers: An Empirical Comparison of the UK and Germany
利用最优税收规则和劳动供给弹性，评估英国和德国对单身母亲的税收最优性，发现两国现行税制仅在政府高度重视非工作者福利时才最优。
Optimal tax rules are used to evaluate the optimality of taxation for lone mothers in Germany and Britain. The theoretical model is combined with elasticities derived from the structural estimation of lone mothers' labour supply. For both countries we do not find that in-work credits with marginal tax rates are optimal. However we show that when the government has a low taste for redistribution, out-of-work transfers and transfer for the working poor are very similar, implying very low marginal tax rates. Further, the current tax and transfer systems in both countries are shown to be optimal only if governments have a much higher welfare value for income received by the non-workers than the working poor. © Journal compilation © 2009 by the Royal Economic Society (Registered Charity No. 231508).