• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.1-59
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• 2018

The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is a policy that supports low-income households financially as well as provides an economic incentive to participate in the labor market. Thus, estimating the causal effect of the policy on the labor force participation rate of low-income households is critical for the policy evaluation. In this paper, we exploit the variation in the eligibility to the EITC and the size of the benefit over several reforms of the EITC in South Korea since 2008 and estimate the impact on the participation in the labor market. Using data from four major household surveys, we find that the results are mixed; in some samples and specifications, we find that the effect is positive and statistically significant, while it is insignificant in others. The estimated effect is more likely to be positive and significant when we restrict the sample to the period before 2014. It is an important topic of future research whether the EITC's effect gets weaker because it is extended to cover the self-employed and beneficiaries of the National Basic Livelihood Security.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.17 no.8
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• pp.382-395
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• 2017

This study tries to analyze whether the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), which was modified in 2011, has the effect of work incentive. In this sense, by establishing the 8th Wave of Korea Welfare Panel Study (2013) and the 9th Wave (2014), Furthermore, in order to overcome the methodological limit, the results of two-party analysis method will be compared by firstly carrying out multiple regression analysis and then performing propensity score matching analysis. The 535 households out of 6,025 were selected. The following are the results of multiple digression analysis and propensity score matching analysis. First, there was no statistically meaningful relationship with regard to the perception of the EITC. Second, there was a statistically meaningful result in the reduction of working hours with regard to whether a household received labor incentive or not. The study found that the revised EITC is not providing incentives which stimulates the will to work.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.185-223
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• 2008

This paper considers a heterogeneous agent dynamic general equilibrium model and analyzes effects of an increase in labor income tax rate on labor market and the aggregate variables in Korea. The fiscal policy regarding how the government uses the additional tax revenue may take the two forms: 1) general transfer and 2) earned income tax credit (EITC). The model features are as follows: 1) Workers are heterogeneous in their productivity. 2)Labor is indivisible, hence the analysis focuses on the variation in labor supply through the extensive margin in response to a change in fiscal policy. 3) The incomplete markets are introduced, so individual workers can not perfectly insure themselves against risks related to stochastic changes in income or employment status. 4) The model is of general equilibrium, hence it is equiped to analyze the feedback effect of changes in aggregate variables on individual workers' decisions. In the case of general transfer policy, the government equally distributes the additional tax revenue to all workers regardless of their employment states. Under this policy, an increase in the labor income tax rate dampens work incentives of individual workers so that the aggregate employment rate decreases by 1% compared with the benchmark economy. In the case of EITC policy, only employed workers whose labor incomes are below a certain EITC ceiling are eligible for the EITC benefits. Unlike the general transfer policy, the EITC induces low-income workers to participate the labor market to be eligible for EITC benefits. Hence, the aggregate employment rate may increase by 2.7% at the maximum. As the EITC ceiling increases, too many workers can collect the EITC but the benefits per worker becomes too little so that the increase in employment rate is negligible. By and large, this study demonstrates that EITC may effectively raise the aggregate employment rate, and that it can be a useful policy tool in response to the decrease in the labor force due to population aging as observed in Korea recently.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.131-170
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• 2008

Korea's public assistance system, represented by NBLS(National Basic livelihood Security), has disclosed critical problems despite the rapid increase in its budget, such as decreasing work incentive and deepening welfare trap. These typical problems of classical welfare system have been commonly witnessed in many other advanced countries. Therefore a number of efforts have been exerted to correct these problems by transferring the existing welfare system into a welfare-to-work(or workfare) system, and the most common one of such efforts is introducing the EITC(Earned Income Tax Credit)-type programs. They have already been implemented in many countries such as the USA, the UK and France, also Korean government decided to launch EITC program in 2009. This paper aims to propose some measures to improve Korean EITC program. For this, an optimization problem is constructed from the government's viewpoint. Optimal EITC program is defined to be a solution to the problem - a combination of phase-in rate, phase-out rate, and maximum credit that maximizes labor supply increase under a exogenously given budget constraint. Using a mechanism design analysis, we derive and characterize the optimal EITC program. Analysis results implies that Korean EITC structure needs to be modified so that phase-in rate is larger than phase-out rate and the upper limit of phase-out range becomes larger. Comparative static analysis results show that the feature of the optimal EITC program is sensitive to the change of income distribution, suggesting that if beneficiaries are categorized into different income groups, then it is desirable to apply distinctive EITC programs to each group.