In this paper, we use an exogenous variation in tax regulations to analyze the impact of bonus depreciation programs on business investment. To promote economic convergence of Eastern and Western Germany after reunification, bonus depreciation tax incentives were granted for investments in...

As an incentive to increase high-impact investment and boost growth, the German Federal Government is planning to introduce a targeted temporary super depreciation allowance to support much-needed green and digital transitions. Using a calibrated multi-sector DSGE model, we find that the...

We estimate household equivalence scales using income satisfaction data from the German Socio-Economic Panel. We extend previous studies applying this approach by taking reference income into account. This allows separating needs-based from reference effects in the determination of income...

This note provides evidence for the relationship between income comparisons and subjective well-being (SWB), using novel German data on self-reported comparison intensity and perceived relative income for seven reference groups. We find negative correlations between comparison intensity and SWB...

Do minimum wages reduce in-work-poverty and wage inequality? Or can alternative policies do better? We evaluate theses issues for the exemplary case of Germany that suffers from high unemployment among low-skilled workers and rising wage dispersion at the bottom of the wage distribution. We...

This paper documents earnings dynamics over the life-cycle and income level using a large administrative database from German tax records. I find that labor earnings display important deviations from the typical assumptions of linearity and normality. For the bottom earners, large income changes...

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 that...

We investigate the wage assimilation of East Germans who migrated to West Germany after reunification (1990-1999). We compare their wage assimilation to that of ethnic German immigrants from Eastern Bloc countries and international immigrants to West Germany who arrived at the same time. The...

In the spirit of Harberger, we apply a dynamic computable general equilibrium (CGE) model and estimate the excess burden stemming from the tax-induced distortion in the allocation of capital across the corporate and the non-corporate sectors in Germany. In doing so, we perform a counterfactual...