New Gig Work or Changes in Reporting? Understanding Self-Employment Trends in Tax Data
研究发现，2005年后向美国国税局报告自雇收入的工人比例上升并非源于企业报告的零工工人增加，而是主要由享受劳动所得税抵免的个人自报收入驱动，且税收激励促使人们更多报告自雇收入。
We show that increases in the share of workers reporting self-employment to the IRS are not associated with changes in firm-reported payments to “gig” and other contract workers after 2005 but are driven primarily by self-reported earnings of individuals in the EITC phase-in range. We examine a regression discontinuity design that generates exogenous variation in tax rates at the end of the year after labor supply decisions are already sunk and find tax code incentives increase self-employment reporting conditional on actual labor supply. We show that reporting effects have grown over time as knowledge of the tax code spreads.