We experimentally test overconfidence in investment decisions by offering participants the possibility to substitute their own for alternative investment choices. Overall, 149 subjects participated in two experiments, one with just one risky asset, the other with two risky assets. Overconfidence...

This paper analyses the impact of immigration on the welfare of the native population in an economy that consists of skilled and unskilled workers. Due to unionisation, the wage rate in the market for unskilled labour is above the competitive level. For a given skill endowment of the native...

This paper provides evidence of efficient taxation of groups with heterogeneous levels of "tax morale". We set up an optimal income tax model where high tax morale implies a high subjective cost of evading taxes. The model predicts that "nice guys finish last": groups with higher tax morale will...

We analyze different options for the design of a common unemployment insurance system for the euro area (EA). We assess their effectiveness to act as an insurance device in the presence of asymmetric macroeconomic shocks. Running counterfactual simulations based on micro data for the period...

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...

We examine how trade openness influences income inequality within countries. The sample includes 139 countries over the period 1970-2014. We employ predicted openness as instrument to deal with the endogeneity of trade openness. The effect of trade openness on income inequality differs across...

This paper is the first to use information from individual country-by-country (CbC) re-ports to assess the extent of profit shifting by multinational enterprises. Unlike other data often used to evaluate the extent of profit shifting and tax avoidance, CbC reports pro-vide a complete coverage of...

This paper re-examines the link between globalization and income inequality. We use data for 140 countries over the period 1970-2014 and employ an IV approach to deal with the endogeneity of globalization measures. We find that the link between globalization and income inequality differs across...