We assess the concentration and duration of zero tax liabilities and of transfer receipts, using data for households with ten to forty years of observations from the Panel Survey of Income Dynamics. We find that neither is strongly concentrated. Nearly 68% owe no federal tax in at least one...

This working paper presents Chapter 7 of a book to be published for the National Bureau of Economic Research by the University of Chicago Press. The point of the book is to compare taxes on income from capital in four countries,accounting for corporate, personal, and property taxes, and...

The extent of the demographic changes in Europe is dramatic and will deeply affect future labor, financial and goods markets. The expected strain on public budgets and especially social security has already received prominent attention, but aging poses many other economic challenges that...

This paper examines the performance of the German economy and the role of the regulation and welfare state policies in affecting its performance. While the German economy is still strong, incentives in place are likely to impair future German competitiveness and productivity

I develop a model with the path of labor-market outcomes exhibiting hysteresis depending on prior labor-market policy. The results suggest that attempts to transfer policies across economies lead to surprising results even if current economic outcomes in the countries appear similar. Examples of...

Germany experienced an even deeper fall in GDP in the Great Recession than the United States, with little employment loss. Employers' reticence to hire in the preceding expansion, associated in part with a lack of confidence it would last, contributed to an employment shortfall equivalent to 40...