This paper provides a quantitative evaluation of the macroeconomic, distributional, and fiscal effects of three reform proposals for Germany: i) a reduction in the social security tax in the low-wage sector, ii) a publicly financed expansion of full-day child care and full-day schooling, and...

Even before the financial crisis of 2007/08, there were significant questions about Europe's long-term growth prospects. After a long period of catching up with US levels of labour productivity, euro area productivity growth had, from the mid-1990s onwards, fallen significantly behind. Using...

Economic studies on the degree of competition (DC) in banking systems use various measures which are subsumed under the 1) structure- (e.g. Hirschman-Herfindahl index), 2) conduct- (e.g. Boone indicator) or 3) performance-oriented approach (e.g. Lerner index). Yet, the respective empirical...