Increasing Hours Worked: Moonlighting Responses to a Large Tax Reform
63 Pages Posted: 4 Oct 2017 Last revised: 13 Jan 2021
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Increasing Hours Worked: Moonlighting Responses to a Large Tax Reform
Increasing Hours Worked: Moonlighting Responses to a Large Tax Reform
Date Written: October 3, 2017
Abstract
Moonlighting is increasingly popular in OECD countries, with 5 to 10% of workers holding two or more jobs. However, little is known about the responsiveness of moonlighting to financial incentives due to the lack of identifying variation. This paper studies a unique reform in Germany that allowed workers to hold small secondary jobs tax-free, decreasing the marginal tax rate by between 19.5 to 66pp. I show that the reform resulted in a dramatic increase in moonlighting that was not offset by reductions in primary earnings, and that hours constraints are a key determinant of moonlighting.
Keywords: multiple job holding, moonlighting, payroll tax, income tax
JEL Classification: H24, J22
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation