The German Income Tax Reform 2000, which announced a reduction in income tax rates to be implemented in a series of three stages, was welcomed by the public as a step towards unleashing lurking growth potentials. Nonetheless, in the course of the year 2001 a dispute arose, centering around the...

In this paper, we assess the accuracy of macroeconomic forecasts at the regional level using a unique data set at quarterly frequency. We forecast gross domestic product (GDP) for two German states (Free State of Saxony and Baden-Württemberg) and Eastern Germany. We overcome the problem of a...

Mit zunehmender Globalisierung und beschleunigtem technologischem Wandel kommt den sogenannten Humanressourcen eine immer größere Bedeutung für die Wettbewerbsfähigkeit eines Landes und seiner Unternehmen zu. Dabei hängt die Qualität der Humanressourcen einerseits von staatlichen...

Der Finanzwissenschaftliche Ausschuss des Vereins für Socialpolitik hat in seiner Arbeitstagung 2001 die finanzpolitischen Ansatzpunkte zur Behebung von Arbeitsmarktproblemen diskutiert. Der Tagungsband enthält die drei Grundsatzreferate von Axel Börsch-Supan (Universität Mannheim),...

During the next decades the populations of most developed countries will grow older as a result of the low level of birth rates since the 1970s and/or the continuously increasing life expectancy. We show within a Generational Accounting framework how unsustainable the public finances of France,...

In the monthly ifo Business Survey around 9,000 German companies answer questions about their current business situation, expectations and plans for the near future as well as on other business variables. This paper provides an overview of all regular questions (monthly, quarterly, bi-annually,...