BICEPS/SSE Riga Research Seminar: Firm Heterogeneity and the Impact of Payroll Taxes

We invite you to a BICEPS/SSE Riga research seminar, which will take place on Thursday, November 24, at SSE Riga, room 411 (note a room change).

We are delighted to welcome Anikó Bíró as the speaker. Anikó is a senior researcher at the Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies in Budapest, Hungary. She holds a PhD from Central European University. Anikó does empirical research in the fields of Labour Economics, Health Economics, and the Economics of Ageing. Her work has been published in journals such as the Journal of Public Economics, Labour Economics and Health Economics. Read more about the speaker here.

Speaker: Anikó Bíró (Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies, Hungary)

Title: Firm Heterogeneity and the Impact of Payroll Taxes (co-authored with Réka Branyiczki, Attila Lindner, Lili Márk and Dániel Prinz)

Time: Thursday, November 24, 17:00

Venue: SSE Riga, room 411 (not the usual 611)

Abstract

We study the impact of a large payroll tax cut for older workers in Hungary. Motivated by the predictions of a standard equilibrium job search model, we examine the heterogeneous impact of the policy. Employment increases most at low-productivity firms offering lower-wage jobs, which tend to hire from unemployment, while the effects are more muted for high-productivity firms offering high-wage jobs. At the same time, wages only increase at high-productivity firms. These results point to important heterogeneity in the incidence of payroll tax cuts across firms and highlight that payroll taxes have a significant impact on the composition of jobs in the labor market.

No prior registration for the seminar is necessary. For any questions about the seminar, or if you have a colleague that would like to be added to the distribution list, please write to Nicolas Gavoille.