Negative Income Tax and Labor Market Participation: A Short Run Analysis

This article examines the effects of the Negative Income Tax, in a matching model, on labor market participation. We show that the introduction of such instrument reduces unemployment and improves the situation of the poorest. But, amazingly, it provokes a fall on labor market participation principally because the agents are then less selective. We find another surprising result: despite the rise on participation, the increasing of unemployment benefits improves the situation of the firms at the expense of workers.
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