Nuremberg Research Seminar in Economics on 29 November 2023 – LG 0.423
You are invited to join the weekly Nuremberg Research Seminar in Economics on 29 November 2023, from 13.15 to 14.45 pm. The seminar will be held in room LG 0.423. Christian Bredemeier (University of Wuppertal) will be talking about „Marriage, Taxes, and Consumption Insurance”.
More information can be found here:
Whether married couples should be taxed jointly or individually remains one of the vividly debated questions in economics, politics, and society. We approach this question quantitatively from a consumption-insurance angle. Joint taxation increases the consumption value of marriage by encouraging the self-insurance by households against wage shocks through means of spousal labor supply. We quantify this effect within a computational model of labor supply and consumption insurance of dual-earner households calibrated to the US economy. At status-quo levels of progressivity, the effect weakens the welfare gain from moving to individual taxation, but does not render it negative. At levels of progressivity providing optimal consumption insurance, however, joint taxation can in fact dominate individual insurance in terms of welfare.