The Detaxation of Overtime Hours: Lessons from the French Experiment

Pierre Cahuc (1, 2, 3) , Stéphane Carcillo (4)

1 X - École polytechnique
2 ENSAE Paris - École Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Administration Économique
3 CREST - Centre de Recherche en Economie et Statistique [Bruz]
4 ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po)

In October 2007, France introduced an exemption on the income tax and social security contributions that applied to wages received for hours worked overtime. The goal of the policy was to increase the number of hours worked. This article shows that this reform has had no significant impact on hours worked. Conversely, it has had a positive impact on the overtime hours declared by highly qualified wage earners, who have opportunities to manipulate the overtime hours they declare in order to optimize their tax situation since the hours they work are difficult to verify.

Mots clés: Overtime; Research; Working hours; Income tax; Labor productivity

Domaines: Economies et finances

Pierre Cahuc, Stéphane Carcillo. The Detaxation of Overtime Hours: Lessons from the French Experiment. Journal of Labor Economics, 2014, 32 (2), pp.361 - 400. ⟨10.1086/674987⟩. ⟨hal-03460334⟩