20 November 2025
We study the targeting and behavioral responses of the Temporary Bridging Scheme for self-employed entrepreneurs (Tozo), a major income support scheme for self-employed individuals in the Netherlands during the COVID-19 pandemic. We combine administrative data on all self-employed persons with data on income and wealth, data on hours worked from the Labour Force Survey (EBB), and data on turnover from tax returns. We show that the introduction of a partner income test made the scheme better targeted at low-income households during the pandemic. We then use a difference-in-differences method to investigate the potential adverse behavioral responses to this targeting.
The treatment group consists of self-employed without a partner, while the control group consists of self-employed with a partner. The first group uses the support scheme much more often after the introduction of the partner income test than the second group. We find a statistically significant decline in hours worked and turnover for the treatment group relative to the control group during the period of the partner income test, compared to the period prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, these effects are not statistically significantly different from the decline in hours worked and turnover compared to the period during the COVID-19 pandemic before the introduction of the partner income test. Therefore, we cannot exclude that the effects are the result of different responses of singles and couples to the pandemic, rather than adverse behavioral responses due to targeting.
This study was published in International Tax and Public Finance in October 2025: Targeting and potential adverse effects of income support for the self-employed during COVID-19 | International Tax and Public Finance.
Earlier, this study also appeared as a policy-oriented CPB publication.
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