Research
Working Papers
What preferences do partners hold over their relative income within the household? We provide a flexible framework of preferences over relative income within the household and study their role for marital selection, separation, and household public good provision in a marriage market matching model with search frictions. We test the model predictions using large administrative tax data from Germany. We document the existence of a kink point in the relative income distribution at the point of spousal income equality. We also find the presence of a convex kink in wives’ household public good provision, suggesting that women bear the incidence of spousal relative income preferences. To disentangle the preferences of women and men, we implement a survey experiment. Our results indicate that women exhibit inequality aversion while men exhibit a preference for being the primary earner.
What happens to earnings upon marriage? Linking administrative and survey data from Germany, we show that there is a marriage earnings gap. Even after accounting for the child penalty, women’s earnings drop by 20% after marriage. We show that the marriage earnings gap results from both the extensive margin (women stop working) and the intensive margin (women work fewer hours), but not from a decrease in hourly wages. Labor supply disincentives from joint taxation can explain about one third of the marriage earnings gap, while we find no effect for labor supply incentives from changes in divorce law. In addition to tax incentives, we show that gender norms are an important mechanism behind the marriage earnings gap.
Work in Progress
Disentangling Gender Norms and Tax incentives - Analyzing the Introduction of Joint Taxation to Same-Sex Couples
Gender Inequality Among Top Earners
Policy Work
With: David Gstrein & Florian Neumeier
In: Kurzexpertise im Auftrag des Bundesministeriums der Finanzen im Rahmen des Forschungsauftrags fe 3/19
With: David Gstrein & Florian Neumeier
In: Kurzexpertise im Auftrag des Bundesministeriums der Finanzen im Rahmen des Forschungsauftrags fe 3/19
With: Francesco Corti, Mathias Dolls, Tamas Kiss-Galfalvi, Daniel Gros, David Gstrein, Alessandro Liscai & Tomas Ruiz
In: EconPol Policy Brief, 2021, 40
With: Carla Krolage, Manuel Menkhoff, Annika Oberhuber, Paul Schüle
In: ifo Schnelldienst, 2022, 75, Nr. 10, 36-40
With: Clara Albrecht & Jennifer Steigmeier
In: ifo Schnelldienst, 2022, 75, Nr. 10, 41-46
With: David Gstrein & Florian Neumer
In: IPOL in-depth Analysis
With: Clemens Fuest & Florian Neumeier
In: ifo Schnelldienst, 2021, 74, Nr. 10, 31-36