Income Taxation of Couples and Gender (In)equality in Earnings (solo-authored)

How does a move from joint taxation to individual taxation affect the gender earnings gap? In Germany, married couples can choose between individual or joint (withholding) income taxation. The 2013 withholding income tax reform introduced individual taxation as the default for newlywed spouses. This implied lower average and marginal tax rates for the secondary earner, typically the wife, if couples stayed with the default. I use unique and novel data for the universe of German taxpayers and leverage the default introduction as an exogenous change to the share of newlyweds choosing individual taxation. I establish three main results. First, the share of newlyweds choosing the individual tax schedule increases by 13.5 percentage points after the default introduction. Second, female labor force participation increases by 1 percentage point. Third, the partner pay gap narrows by 2 percentage points as a result of a rise in pre-tax female labor income, while pre-tax male labor income remains unchanged compared to the period preceding the default introduction. My findings suggest that a move from joint taxation towards individual taxation of spouses can improve gender equality in earnings and raise overall labor supply.

Disentangling Gender Norms and Tax incentives - Analyzing the Introduction of Joint Taxation to Same-Sex Couples  (with Elena Herold and Carina Neisser)

The Impact of Parental Leave Benefits on Pre-Birth Earnings (with Ulrich Glogowsky, Amelie Grosenick, Emanuel Hansen, Andreas Peichl and Dominik Sachs)

How Important Are Local Knowledge Spillovers of Public R&D and What Drives Them? (2020), with Martin Simmler, Research Policy, 49(7)