This commentary reflects on the recommendations of the Mirrlees Review on tax reform with a special focus on capital income taxation. Regarding the alternatives of moving to a consumption based tax system, the commentary discusses the relative merits of choosing an ACE system (allowance for...

A social market economy, together with corrective government activities, allows citizens to achieve the highest possible welfare with limited resources. Income and welfare, however, tend to be very unequally distributed in society. Most theories of justice call for some redistribution for a more...

This paper proposes and analyses a model of start-up investment. Innovative entrepreneurs are commercially inexperienced and can benefit from venture capital support. Only part of them succeed in matching with a venture capitalist while the rest must resort to standard bank finance. We consider...

With the beginning of the new millennium it has become more and more apparent that education and human capital constitute a key element of modern economies. Despite the important role of human capital in modern societies, there are still many unknowns about the process of educational production...

This survey of recent research in corporate finance discusses how business taxes, subsidies as well as a country's institutional development affect several important decision margins of heterogeneous firms. We argue that innovative firms, as a result of agency problems between insiders and...

In recent years, venture capital has increasingly become a factor in the financing of new firms. We examine how the value of mature firms determines the incentives of entrepreneurs to start up new firms and of venture capitalists to finance and advise them. We examine how capital gains taxes as...

A model of start-up finance with double moral hazard is proposed. Entrepreneurs have ideas but lack own resources as well as commercial experience. Venture capitalists provide start-up finance and managerial support. Both types of agents thus jointly contribute to the firm's success, but neither...

Venture capital has become an important source of financing young entrepreneurial firms. Venture capital backed firms are often perceived as more innovative and as creating more value than others. Perhaps for this reason, policy makers are keen to create a good institutional framework to...

Swiss banking secrecy laws not only tempt foreign investors to remain silent about at least part of their capital incomes and, thus, not pay taxes as obliged by law. Therefore, Switzerland introduced a withholding tax on capital income in 1934, primarily in order to coerce domestic residents to...

This paper investigates the consequences of pension reform for life-cycle unemployment and retirement. We find that (i) improving actuarial fairness in pension assessment not only boosts old age participation but also reduces unemployment among prime age workers and raises welfare; (ii)...