This paper evaluates the effect of AIDS-related mortality on per-capita incomes of surviving household members, using a large nationally representative sample of rural households from Zambia. To minimize selection bias that may arise because AIDS is likely to be the endogenous outcome of...

This paper analyses a game theoretic model of tax competition in a system where tax authorities are revenue optimisers and countries are differentiated by size. The model accommodates more than two countries. In equilibrium, larger countries set higher tax rates non-cooperatively. By applying...

The paper deals with the issue in how far the fiscal policy of the German Laender can be considered as sustainable. Comparing the fiscal policy stance and budgets of the 16 German states, only Bavaria and Saxony are pursuing a fiscal policy which may be labelled as sustainable. The other states...

Elected representatives have little incentive to pursue the interests of those electing them once they are elected. This well-known principle-agent problem leads, in a variety of theories of government, to nonoptimally large levels of government expenditure. An implication is that budgetary...

This paper deals with the influence of factor mobility on local infrastructure policy and rent-seeking activities of local interest groups. It employs a model where households differ with respect to their endowment with the immobile factor land. Local governments decide about the level of...

This paper takes stock of German public support measures in favour of families. The database comprises benefits from family-specific norms of tax law as well as cash and in-kind transfers both from public budgets (federal, states’ and local layer) and from the social insurance system...

In this paper, the authors analyze the behavior of local governments on capital taxation when the financial choices in terms of a public good quality are done by a central planner. More specifically, they ask the question whether a local government has an interest to tax the mobile factor in...

Subsidization policy is intensively discussed in Germany. The paper demonstrates the extent of subsidization in Germany. Subsidies are defined as the sum of tax expenditures and those government expenditures which distort the structure of the economy; financial aid is granted to different...

Subsidization policy is intensively discussed in Germany. Subsidies comprise by definition tax expenditures and those government expenditures which distort the structure of the economy; financial aid is granted to different branches by the EU, the federal government, the states (Länder) and the...