Impacts of Selective Reductions in Labor Taxation

To study the impacts of reductions in employer’s social security contributions, we construct an intertemporal general equilibrium model with different types of workers (and wages), search unemployment and endogenous job destruction rates. Our model reproduces the empirical evidence that the impacts on employment, of reductions in contributions at the minimum wage level, go through a decrease in job destructions rather than an increase in job creations. We moreover find that, although it is prejudicial to average productivity, reductions targeted at the minimum wage create much more net employment than reductions targeted at other wages.