One central lesson of the sovereign debt crisis is that the Eurozone (and the EU) needs institutional reform. Many observers argue that the monetary union should be complemented by a fiscal union . In this paper we provide the first quantitative analysis of important economic effects of an EU...

The present paper aims to quantify efficiency properties of real world social security systems of various institutional designs in order to identify an optimal pension design. Starting from a benchmark economy without social security, we introduce alternative pension systems and compare the...

Profit taxes are widely acknowledged to influence the location of firms' headquarters. This paper sheds light on the role of aspects of labor taxation for the international location of headquarters. We construct a unique data set of effective labor taxes in 120 countries and use data on the...

This paper documents the magnitude, pattern, and evolution of lifetime earnings inequality in Germany. Based on a large sample of earning biographies from social security records, we show that the intra-generational distribution of lifetime earnings of male workers has a Gini coefficient around...

To explore single mothers labor market participation we analyze specific circumstances and dynamics in their life courses. We focus on the question which individual and institutional factors determine both professional advancement and professional descent. Due to dynamics in women s life course...

Traditionally, it has been argued that profit sharing can increase employment and welfare because it lowers marginal labour costs without reducing labour income. In this paper, we show that profit sharing can also represent a Pareto-improvement if labour supply is excessive due to relative...

This study examines the role of migrant's remittances on labor supply in remittance receiving households. A simple labor choice model is developed which is extended to include self-employment. Unlike earlier studies, fixed effects estimations as well as an instrumental approach are applied....