Minimum wages, taxes and transfers, and low-income workers

在许多发达国家，解决高度不平等和在职贫困问题已成为公共政策议程的核心。政策制定者经常求助于两种特别的工具：从政府向低收入工人或雇用他们的公司提供现金转移（有时称为“税收抵免”）和最低工资。但是，这些政策的影响，特别是它们在减少贫困和提高生活水平方面的作用，无法相互独立地充分理解。了解这些关键工具如何结合起来，以及它们的影响如何受到更广泛的经济和政策环境的影响，对于制定最能提高低收入工人生活水平的政策组合至关重要。本项目将从几个关键方面加强我们对这些政策的理解。首先，我们将研究向低收入工人提供税收抵免如何影响他们的工资。这种转移激励更多的人去工作，但这可能会让雇主降低他们提供的工资。这一点至关重要——如果工资确实因引入或扩大税收抵免而下降，那将从根本上破坏其目的。其次，我们将研究税收抵免和工资之间的关系取决于什么。例如，最低工资提供了一个工资不能低于的底线——因此，同时使用最低工资和税收抵免可能被证明是提高低收入工人生活水平的有效途径。税收抵免工资的关系也可能取决于工会的存在，工会可以增强工人的议价能力；或者这可能取决于有多少雇主，因此他们有什么样的议价能力。第三，我们将分析税收抵免、其他税收或转移政策以及最低工资如何共同影响家庭收入。税收抵免对家庭收入有直接影响，但正如已经讨论过的那样，它们可能会降低工人的工资。与此同时，它们可以增加就业，提高家庭收入。最低工资不仅会影响那些实际领取最低工资的人，还会影响那些工资略高于最低工资的人，因为雇主会提高工资，以维持工资差距；他们可能会减少就业。我们将汇集多个工具和数据集，全面研究这些政策的效果，以及它们如何相互影响，从而影响富人和穷人家庭的收入。总之，研究这些问题将有助于全面评估税收抵免、其他税收改革和最低工资的价值，以及它们如何依赖于经济环境的其他部分。通过在法国、德国和英国平行研究这些问题，我们将能够进一步扩展我们对这些问题的理解。这些国家提供的不同环境将使我们能够阐明形成这些政策效果的制度安排和背景条件。

Tackling high rates of inequality and in-work poverty has become central to public policy agendas in many developed countries. Policymakers have often turned to two particular tools: cash transfers (sometimes called ‘tax credits’) from the government to low income workers, or firms that hire them, and minimum wages. But the impacts of these policies, and in particular their role in reducing poverty and increasing living standards, cannot be adequately understood independently from one another. Understanding how these key tools combine, and how their effects are shaped by the wider economic and policy environment, is crucial for building the mix of policies that is best targeted at boosting living standards for low income workers.This project will seek to enhance our understanding of such policies in several key ways.First, we will study how providing tax credits to low income workers can affect their wages. Such transfers incentivise more people to work – but that potentially allows employers to reduce the wages they offer. This is of crucial importance – if wages do fall in response to the introduction or expansion of tax credits, that fundamentally undermines their purpose.Second, we will examine what the relationship between tax credits and wages depends upon. For example, minimum wages provide a floor which wages cannot fall below – so using minimum wages and tax credits together might prove to be an effective way to boost low income workers’ living standards. The tax credit-wage relationship might also depend upon the presence of unions, who can strengthen workers’ bargaining power; or it might depend upon how many employers there are and thus what kind of bargaining power they have.Third, we will analyse how tax credits, other tax or transfer policies, and minimum wages work together to affect household incomes. Tax credits have a direct effect on household incomes, but – as discussed already – they might reduce workers’ wages. At the same time, they could increase employment, boosting household incomes. Minimum wages can affect not only those actually on the minimum wage, but also those paid a little above as employers raise wages to maintain pay differentials; and they might reduce employment. We will bring together several tools and datasets to comprehensively study the effect of these policies and how they fit together to affect rich and poor households’ incomes.Together, studying these questions will help provide a thorough assessment of the value of tax credits, other tax reforms, and minimum wages – and how they depend on other parts of the economic environment. We will be able to further extend our understanding of these issues by studying them in a parallel way across France, Germany, and the UK. The different settings that these countries provide will allow us to shed light on the institutional arrangements and background conditions that shape the effects of these policies.