Deutschland wird im europäischen Vergleich häufig ein überdurchschnittlich progressives Steuersystem attestiert. Die einzigartige, mehrstufige Progressionsformel der Einkommensteuer trägt ohne Zweifel zu dieser Sichtweise bei. Um ein umfassendes Bild der Progressivität eines Gesamtsystems...

Die Steuervorschläge der Parteien stellen einen wesentlichen Teil ihrer Wahlprogramme für die Bundestagswahl 2013 dar. Sie werden in der Öffentlichkeit kontrovers diskutiert, da davon ausgegangen wird, dass sie einen erheblichen Einfluss auf die Wahlentscheidung haben wer-den. Daher stellt...

Inequality has increased considerably in many Western countries over the past decades. When dealing with economic inequality as a research subject the question "inequality of what among whom" arises. Analyses of inequality are typically concerned with the distribution of wages, earnings or...

Recent discussions about rising inequality in industrialized countries have triggered calls for more government intervention and redistribution. Due to obvious behavioral effects caused by redistribution, it is however not clear whether redistributional policies are indeed able to combat...

This paper suggests multidimensional affluence measures for the top of the distribution. In contrast to commonly used top income shares, they allow the analysis of the extent, intensity and breadth of affluence in several dimensions within a common framework. We illustrate this by analyzing the...

In diesem Beitrag analysieren wir den aktuellen Einkommensteuervorschlag von Paul Kirchhof im Hinblick auf Zielkonflikte zwischen Steueraufkommen, Verteilungswirkungen und Effizienzgesichtspunkten. Wir kommen zu dem Ergebnis, dass der aktuelle Kirchhof-Vorschlag politisch kaum durchsetzbar sein...

This paper employs a multidimensional approach for the measurement of well-being at the top of the distribution using German SOEP micro data. Besides income as traditional indicator for material well-being, we include health as a proxy for nonmaterial quality of life as well as self-reported...

In Germany, there is an ongoing debate about how to increase the efficiency of the social security system. The aim of this paper is to simulate different financing systems for Germany with its typical Conservative welfare state regime. For our analysis, we rely on the European static...

The success of the flat rate tax in Eastern Europe suggests that this concept could also be a model for the welfare states of Western Europe. The present paper uses a simulation model to analyse the effects of revenue neutral flat rate tax reforms on equity and efficiency for the case of...

In this paper, we define a new class of richness measures. In contrast to the often used headcount, these new measures are sensitive to changes in rich persons' income and therefore allow for a more sophisticated analysis of richness. We demonstrate the application of these new measures to...