Welcome to Skatteforsk- Centre for Tax Research's February seminar!
This time, we are excited to host Ragnhild Camilla Schreiner, associate professor at the University of Oslo, who will present her paper titled "Taxing Labor: Firm R&D, Automation and the Labor Share”. The seminar takes place in Tårnbygningen, room T316, from 11:15-12:00, Thursday 13th of February.
The seminar is open, and everyone is welcome to join. We hope to see you there!
Abstract:
We examine how firms respond to an increase in payroll taxes using a combination of administrative and survey data from Norway. Due to an EU-imposed harmonization of geographically differentiated payroll taxes, Norwegian firms experienced a differential increase in their labor costs, depending on their location and the composition of their workforce. We find that firms respond to the tax increase by reducing employment and sales while investing more in R&D and cost-saving innovations. Labor productivity rises after the tax increase but the labor share falls. These effects persist even when the payroll tax increase is reversed four years after the initial increase, suggesting that firms permanently switched to a more capital-intensive production technology in response to the tax increase.
Authors:
Hyejin KU (UCL & RFBerlin)
Uta Schönberg (HKU, UCL & RFBerlin)
Ragnhild Schreiner (U Oslo)
To join online click the below link:
Meeting ID: 390 886 369 99
Passcode: zk9mv2r8