The objective of this paper is to study to what extent parents divide their estates unequally between their children. Unequal sharing of parental transfers is, for example, a necessary condition for theories of altruistic (dynastic) behavior to hold. I use a new data set based on the estate...

Microsimulation models allow targeted simulations to analyze the impacts of alternative policies, measures, scenarios based on microunits like persons, families, households, firms etc. Meanwhile it is out of question that microsimulation models are a helpful, successful and an imperative...

The empirical evidence suggests that parents use inter vivos gifts (i.e., transfers of tangible and financial property) to compensate less well off children whereas post mortem bequests are divided equally among siblings. We study a theoretical model assuming, first, that the amounts given is...

Income inequality in Germany has been continuously increasing during the past 20 years. In general, this is understood as an increase in inequality of wages due to changes in bargaining power of employees. However, the role of changing household structure is widely neglected. Societal trends...

This paper studies differences in inequality perceptions, distributional norms, and redistributive preferences between East and West Germany. As expected, there are substantial differences with respect to all three of these measures. Surprisingly, however, differences in distributional norms are...

We show how normative standpoints determine optimal taxation of wealth. Since wealth is not equal to capital, we find very different welfare implications of land rent-, bequest- and capital taxation. It is mainly land rents that should be taxed. We develop an overlapping generations model with...

Green tax reform is unpopular because, typically, the poor are hurt most by the higher prices of carbon-intensive commodities. If revenues from a carbon tax are recycled, it may be feasible to gain popular support for green tax reform. To investigate this, we estimate an EASI demand system from...

Ziel dieses Diskussionspapiers ist es, den Einfluss von individuellen und institutionellen Charakteristika auf Niedrigeinkommensmobilität von Selbständigen und abhängig Beschäftigten in Deutschland und im Vereinigten Königreich (UK) zu analysieren. Hierzu werden Daten de SOEP (2000-2009)...

Against a background of rising costs and increasing competition, it is besoming more and more difficult for the small and medium-sized firms of the German mechanical engineering industry to be economically successful. The thesis that rapidly changing markets, products and production processes...

This study on market and non-market labor supply and taxes is based on a theoretical microeconomic model with multiple labor supply in the formal and informal economy. This multiple time allocation model, which explicitly takes into account taxes, transfer payments, socioeconomic characteristics...