Joni Baran
Published: 1996
Total Pages: 140
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Since the early 1980s, chronic unemployment problems in Canada, as well as in most other industrialized countries, have prompted a heightened interest in the empirical research of the causes of persistent unemployment. Among the areas examined has been employer payroll taxes and their effect on job creation. Although research in this area has been relatively sparse, it has become a more popular area of study in the 1990s. This paper is a survey of the more noteworthy analysis performed in this area with an emphasis on Canadian empirical research. The objective is to provide a single locus where much of the work relating to the impact of payroll taxes on employment can be presented and from this, to draw conclusions. Part 1 gives a brief overview of federal payroll taxation in Canada and the perspectives of various stakeholders with respect to the impact of payroll taxes on employment. Part 2 provides an economic primer designed to familiarize the non-economist reader with the concepts and terminology referred to later in the paper.