Since women have a more elastic labour supply than men their labour income should be taxed less. This is a well known implication of the Ramsey principle of optimal taxation that any first year graduate student of public finance would know. We recently brought this idea to the attention of the public debate as a feasible policy proposal rather than an academic curiosum in a series of articles on the Financial Times, Vox, Sole24ore and LaVoce which have received a fair amount of attention.But the issue is far from settled. In particular the critical question is why women have a more elastic labour supply, how would that change with Gender Based Taxation and what would be its effect on the organization of the family. We make a step towards this more comprehensive evaluation in our CEPR DP6591 (NBER WP13638) on “Gender Based Taxation and the Division of Family Chores”.
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