The contribution Bach, Corneo, and Steiner (2008) has argued that the richʺ do not pay taxes adequately in relation to their income, finding, for instance, an effective tax rate of only 38.1% for the 0.001% fractile of German income taxpayers in 2001. This result contrasts sharply with the...

We analyze the distribution and taxation of top incomes in Germany during the 1990s on the basis of individual tax returns data. We derive a measure of economic income from taxable gross income as reported in the tax returns. Thanks to complete sampling, we can deliver a very precise description...

Should the central bank prevent "excessive" asset price dynamics or should it wait until the boom spontaneously turns into a crash and intervene only afterwards? The debate over this issue goes back at least to the exchange between Bernanke-Gertler (BG) and Cecchetti but has not settled yet. In...

A large body research shows a positive relationship between wealth and entrepreneurship and interprets the relationship as providing evidence of liquidity constraints. Recently, however, the liquidity constraint interpretation has been challenged because of the finding that the relationship...

When other economic measurements are scarce or unreliable, height and the body mass index (BMI) are now well accepted measures for cumulative and current net nutrition. However, as the ratio of weight to height, BMI is the ratio of current to cumulative net nutrition, therefore, does not fully...

We calibrate a sequence of four nested models to study the dynamics of wealth accumulation. Individuals maximize a utility function whose arguments are consumption and investment. They desire to accumulate wealth for its own sake - this is not a life-cycle model. A competitive firm produces a...

The Carnegie effect (Holtz-Eakin, Joualfaian and Rosen, 1993) refers to the idea that inherited wealth harms recipients' work efforts, and possesses a key role in the discussion of taxation of intergenerational transfers. However, Carnegie effect estimates are few, reflecting that such effects...

It is well known that homeowners are richer than renters, even after controlling for observable characteristics. This is often used as an argument for policies that foster homeownership. However, the causal link between homeownership and wealth is difficult to establish due to many potential...