Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/236279 
Year of Publication: 
2021
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 14248
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
This paper analyzes how firms respond to changes in tax benefits for low-earning workers and how such policies also affect high-earning workers. I explore establishment outcomes around Germany's 2003 Mini-Job Reform, which expanded tax benefits for low-earning workers. I document that highly exposed establishments–high proportion of low-earning workers–increase their employees relative to non-exposed establishments–low proportion of such workers. This relative expansion is tilted towards high-earning workers, not targeted by the tax benefits. Nonexposed establishments substitute employment towards low-earning workers without expanding at the same pace. My findings are consistent with a model in which employment growth the policy intended is accompanied by a reallocation of employment and production between highly exposed firms and non-exposed firms, resulting in an efficiency loss.
Subjects: 
tax benefits
firm decisions
spillovers
JEL: 
H20
H24
H32
E24
E64
I38
J23
J38
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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