Essays in public finance and family economics

This dissertation consists of three chapters. Chapter 1 studies how unemployment insurance affects the hiring prospects of the long-term unemployed, by influencing firm decisions about which job candidates to invite for interviews and hire. The second chapter considers how income tax progressivity affects the within-family allocation of consumption and leisure, in addition to the well-studied effects on the across-family distribution, as well as marriage and divorce. The third chapter deals with fertility and women's careers and studies how the characteristics of the occupations women work in change after childbirth. Using administrative labor market data from Germany and a survey on the task content of occupations, the chapter studies whether long career breaks lead to occupational downgrading, whether women eventual perform different tasks than before childbirth and whether they switch to more 'family-friendly' occupations