We estimate the effects of monetary policy on price-setting behavior in administrative micro data underlying the German producer price index. We find a strong degree of monetary non-neutrality. After expansionary monetary policy, the mass of additional price adjustments is economically small and...

On 3 June 2020, the German government announced a temporary value added tax (VAT) rate reduction. VAT rates were reduced on 1 July 2020 and went back to their previous level on 1 January 2021. We study the price effects of the temporary VAT rate reduction using a web-scraped data set covering...

The value-added tax is one of the most important tax revenue sources in many countries. However, it is sometimes considered unfair as it ultimately hits consumption, and poorer households spend a greater share of their income on consumption. But this depends on whether, and to what degree, the...

This paper provides insights into the time-varying dynamics of the German business cycle over the last five decades. To do so, I employ an open-economy time-varying parameter VAR with stochastic volatility, which I estimate by quasi-Bayesian techniques. The reduced-form analysis reveals...

We provide a comprehensive analysis of income inequality and income dynamics for Germany over the last two decades. Combining personal income tax and social security data allows us — for the first time — to offer a complete picture of the distribution of annual earnings in Germany. We find...

Using firm-level survey data from Germany, this paper asks how do supply constraints propagate monetary policy shocks? To answer this question, we first offer a general discussion on the measurement of supply constraints. We show that capacity utilization, a widely accepted measure of...

We analyze the effectiveness of the German tax reduction on fuel prices (‘Tankrabatt’) that was introduced for three months, starting on 1 June 2022. Using the synthetic control method to compare actual prices of gasoline and diesel to those in a counterfactual situation without the tax...