Research
Publications
Kalin, Salla, Tomi Kyyrä, and Tuomas Matikka (2026). Combining Part-Time Work and Social Benefits: Empirical Evidence from Finland. Journal of Public Economics 260, 105685.
We use population-wide data from Finland to provide evidence on the impact of earnings disregard policies on part-time work during unemployment spells. The share of part-time workers among benefit recipients increased sharply from about 10% to nearly 18% over a few years after the implementation of earnings disregards in unemployment benefits and housing allowances, which allowed individuals to earn up to 300 euros per month without reductions in their benefits. Using variation in the impact of the reforms on incentives between individuals eligible for different types of benefits, we estimate that the share of individuals working part-time during unemployment increased by 4.1–4.5 percentage points (23–32%) due to the implementation of earnings disregards, corresponding to a part-time work participation elasticity with respect to the participation tax rate of approximately 1. We find no evidence that earnings disregards crowd out full-time employment, but instead find moderate positive longer-run employment effects.
Keywords: labor supply; social benefits; part-time work; earnings disregards.
@article{kalin2026combining,
author = {Kalin, Salla and Kyyrä, Tomi and Matikka, Tuomas},
title = {Combining Part-Time Work and Social Benefits: Empirical Evidence from Finland},
journal = {Journal of Public Economics},
volume = {260},
pages = {105685},
year = {2026},
doi = {10.1016/j.jpubeco.2026.105685}
}Working Papers
Kalin, Salla, Ilpo Kauppinen, Kaisa Kotakorpi, and Jukka Pirttilä (2024). Migration and Tax Policy: Evidence from Finnish Full-Population Data. CESifo Working Paper 11165.
We contribute to the literature on taxation and international mobility by estimating the impact of labour income taxation on the migration decisions of the entire working population in a high-tax source country, Finland. We find that the average domestic elasticity of migration with respect to the domestic tax rate is very small (around 0.0005). We also examine the income gradient of the semi-elasticity of migration, shown to be the key sufficient statistic in Lehmann et al. (2014). Our estimates indicate that the migration semi-elasticities are increasing for top earners, but remain small at least up to the top permille of income earners.
Keywords: taxation; migration.
@techreport{kalin2024migration,
author = {Kalin, Salla and Kauppinen, Ilpo and Kotakorpi, Kaisa and Pirttilä, Jukka},
title = {Migration and Tax Policy: Evidence from Finnish Full-Population Data},
institution = {CESifo},
type = {CESifo Working Paper},
number = {11165},
year = {2024}
}Kalin, Salla, Antoine Levy, and Mathilde Muñoz (2024). Pensioners Without Borders. NBER Working Paper 32890.
This paper examines the threat of tax competition and international migration in aging economies, where retirees represent a growing share of the tax base. In 2013, Portugal introduced a full tax exemption on foreign-source pensions for relocating retirees. Contrary to the traditional view that seniors “age in place,” flows of foreign EU pensioners to Portugal rose by a factor of 30 after the reform, and stocks by more than 3, with effects concentrated among wealthy, educated pensioners from high-tax countries. The implied migration elasticity of the foreign-pensioner stock is large (2–3) and rises over time. Retirement migration persists after temporary incentives expire, as delayed origin-country retaliation (source-based taxation) only partially offsets outflows. Peer effects and spatial clustering evidence social multipliers and generate housing and healthcare congestion in host regions. In our calibrated optimal tax model, large migration elasticities justify preferential rates on foreign pensions, but regressive windfall gains for domestic homeowners and the geographic concentration of congestion externalities make full exemptions unlikely to be optimal.
@techreport{kalin2024pensioners,
author = {Kalin, Salla and Levy, Antoine B. and Muñoz, Mathilde},
title = {Pensioners Without Borders: Agglomeration and the Migration Response to Taxation},
institution = {National Bureau of Economic Research},
type = {NBER Working Paper},
number = {32890},
year = {2024}
}Ongoing Work
Do Changes in Student’s Financial Aid Affect Labor Supply or Academic Performance?
Demand for Unemployment Insurance and Union Membership (with Jaakko Markkanen and Markku Siikanen)