The Czech Republic has over the past decade carried out two waves of tax and benefit reforms. The first one took place in 2005–2006 during the left-wing government and the second one has been carried out in 2008 by the right-wing government. Using EUSILC data for selected types of households, the paper assesses changes in the distribution of gross incomes and effects of the changes in taxes and...

Using data of the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) earnings differentials between self-employed and wage-employed workers in the German labor market are explored. Previous research based on US data reports lower incomes for entrepreneurs. In contrast to that, the findings of this contribution suggest the opposite for German entrepreneurs. They have considerably higher earnings than wage-empl...

Do the Unemployed Become Successful Entrepreneurs? A Comparison between the Unemployed, Inactive and Wage-Earners In many countries unemployed people are helped to become self-employed. Selfemployment, however, does not necessarily lead to success. Many leave self-employment after a short period and the economic outcome varies greatly. It is important to learn more about the economic outcome fo...

Among 4630 boys, irrespective of the social class into which they were born, those who grew slowly during infancy had poor educational achievements and had lower incomes than those who grew more rapidly. One interpretation of this is that biological processes linked to slow infant growth may lead to lifelong impairment of cognitive function.

This article reports on a sample of 538 African American and Hispanic women who were receiving TANF in 1999, 416 of whom left the program by 2005. The Hispanic women consisted of a Mexican-origin group and a second group that was primarily Puerto Rican and Dominican. Combining the experiences of the employed and the non-employed welfare leavers, we find at best a modest decline in the average p...

The United States far outspends Canada on health care, but the sources of additional spending are unclear. We evaluated the importance of incomes, administration, and medical interventions in this difference. Pooling various sources, we calculated medical personnel incomes, administrative expenses, and procedure volume and intensity for the United States and Canada. We found that Canada spent $...

We examine the role that an exogenous increase in household income due to a government transfer unrelated to household characteristics plays in children's long run outcomes. Children in affected households have higher levels of education in their young adulthood and a lower incidence of criminality for minor offenses. Effects differ by initial household poverty status. An additional $4000 per y...