In this study we investigate the impact of the thin capitalization rule (TCR), introduced in Germany in 2008, on firms' capital structure, investment and profitability. The identification of the causal effects is based on the escape clauses in the regulation using a difference-in-difference...

Policy programs on anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) have largely called for preventive measures like keeping record of financial transactions and reporting suspicious ones. In this survey study, we analyze the extent of global money laundering and...

This paper shows that stricter enforcement may increase tax evasion. Individuals vote on a linear income tax which is used to finance lump sum transfers. Stricter enforcement may make redistributive taxation more attractive to the decisive voter. The tax rate and transfer may rise which in turn...

We analyze the distribution and taxation of top incomes in Germany during the 1990s on the basis of individual tax returns data. We derive a measure of economic income from taxable gross income as reported in the tax returns. Thanks to complete sampling, we can deliver a very precise description...

This paper analyzes voting on a linear income tax which is redistributed lump sum to the taxpayers. Individuals can evade taxes, which leads to penalties if evasion is detected. Since preferences satisfy neither single peakedness nor single crossing, an equilibrium may not exist. When it does...

We analyze the taxation of top personal incomes in Germany on the basis of an integrated data file of individual tax returns and a general household survey for the years 1992 - 2002. The unique feature of this integrated data set is that it includes all taxpayers in the top percentile of the...

After giving a short literature review, the paper tries a quantification of the volume of money laundering activities, with the help of a MIMIC estimation procedure for the years 1995 to 2006 for 20 highly developed OECD countries. The volume of laundered money was 273 billions USD in the year...

This study presents comprehensive macroeconomic measures on the revenue from business taxation in Germany. A comparison of the tax base reported in tax statistics with the corporate income derived from national accounts gives hints to considerable tax base erosion. The high weight of reported...

Building on new behavioral and institutional theories, using a data set of about 450 variables and augmenting the Sala-i-Martin definition of robustness, we find evidence in support of the hypothesis that the standard causes of the shadow economy (SE), taxes, the administrative burden and labor...

The paper investigates how Private Equity (PE) ownership influences out-performance of a high-growth firm, and whether it differs from the effect of two other important types of financial investors: banks and non-bank financial firms. We transform the levered return on equity into a unlevered...