This volume presents Richard Blundell's outstanding research on the modern economic analysis of labor markets and public policy reforms. Professor Blundell's hugely influential work has enhanced greatly our understanding of how individuals' behavior on the labor market respond to taxation and social policy influence. Edited by IZA, this volume brings together the author's key papers, some co-authored and some unpublished, with new introductions and an epilogue. It covers some of the main research insights in the study of labor supply. The question of how individuals adapt their behavior in response to policy changes is one of the most investigated topics in empirical labor and public economics. Do people reduce their working hours if governments decide to raise taxes? Might they even withdraw completely from the labor market? Labor supply estimations are extensively used for various policy analyses and economic research. Labor supply elasticities are key information when evaluating tax-benefit policy reforms and their effect on tax revenue, employment, and redistribution. The chapters cover empirical and theoretical developments as well as applications to tax and welfare reform, and each represents a substantive research contribution from Blundell's publications in top research outlets.

Richard Blundell holds the David Ricardo Chair of Political Economy at University College London where he was appointed Professor of Economics in 1984. Since 1986 he has also been Research Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), where he is also Director of the ESRC Centre for the Microeconomic Analysis of Public Policy. Sir Richard holds Honorary Doctorates from the University of St.Gallen, Switzerland; the Norwegian School of Economics, NHH, Bergen, Norway; and the University of Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany. His research includes the fields of microeconometrics, public economics, consumer behaviour, labour supply, taxation and welfare policy evaluation. He was one of the founding editors of the Mirrlees Review of Tax Reform which reported its findings in 2011. He was awarded the CBE in the 2006 Queens New Year Honours list and a Knighthood in 2014 list for his services to Economics and Social Science.
Andreas Peichl has been Professor of Public Economics at the University of Mannheim and head of the research group "International Distribution and Redistribution" at the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) since October 2013. From 2008 until 2013 he was Senior Research Associate at IZA. He received his PhD from the University of Cologne in 2008. Prior to his doctoral studies, he studied economics at the Universities of Marburg and Cologne where he graduated in 2004. He was a visiting scholar at ISER, University of Essex, in 2008 and at UC Berkeley in 2012. His research has been published in academic journals such as the Economic Journal, the Journal of Public Economics and the Journal of Human Resources, among others. His research interests include public, labor and welfare economics with particular reference to labor supply, optimal taxation, and the evaluation of tax reforms.
Klaus F. Zimmermann has been Full Professor of Economics at the University of Bonn and Director of the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA Bonn) since 1998. From 2000 until 2011 he was President of the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin). He is Honorary Professor of Economics at the Free University of Berlin and at the Renmin University of China, and was Chairman of the Society of the German Economic Research Institutes (2005-11). He is author or editor of more than 50 books, more than 140 papers in refereed research journals, and almost 150 chapters in collected volumes. He is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Population Economics, acts as the Chair of the Economics Section and a Council member of the Academia Europaea, and is a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. Professor Zimmermann regularly advises the World Bank, the European Commission, and national governments. In 2013 he received the Outstanding Contribution Award of the European Investment Bank.