Taxation, informality and labour markets

本研究的重点是税收引起的劳动形式变化对福利的影响。劳动力正规化是否应该成为撒哈拉以南非洲各国政府的优先事项是一个有争议的辩论：尽管非正式就业被认为生产率较低，但过度追求劳动力正规化可能会降低低收入工人的福利。2023年，卢旺达政府对工资税起征点进行了改革，影响了成为正式就业工人的激励。我在报告收入的经验分布中使用不连续来估计回归不连续设计和转移份额工具，分别研究政策对个人和当地劳动力市场的影响。这项研究将为正式和非正式劳动力市场背景下的税收政策设计提供证据，在这些背景下，工资税起征点改革对福利的影响缺乏证据。

This research focuses on the welfare impact of taxationinducedchanges in labour formality. Whether labourformalization should be a priority for governments in sub-Saharan Africa is a contested debate: although informalemployment is posited as less productive, the excessivepursuit of labour formalization may decrease welfareamong low-income workers. In 2023, the Government ofRwanda implemented a reform to the payroll tax threshold,affecting the incentive to becoming a formally employedworker. I use discontinuities in the empirical distribution ofreported income to estimate a regression discontinuitydesign and a shift-share instrument to study the individualand local labour market consequences of the policy,respectively. This research will provide evidence to taxpolicy design in contexts with both formal and informallabour markets, where evidence on the welfare impact ofpayroll tax threshold reform is lacking.