Income-expenditure surveys typically provide incomes on the household level. As households can differ in size and needs, a reliable assessment of inequality in living standards, therefore, necessitates the conversion of the original heterogeneous into an artificial quasi-homogeneous population....

We employ German Sample Survey Income data to examine income inequality and the financial situation of elderly citizens for the period from 1978 to 2003, focussing on differences between retired and non-retired elderly and between elderly with residence in the Old and the New German Laender....

Under cooperative federalism, when an identical tax tariff applies to all regions of a federation, usually redistribution rules are implemented to smooth fiscal differences. The administration of tax collection, however, is sometimes delegated to the regional level, leaving the regional...

The German economy has returned to a recovery course following a slight recession over the winter. Although the war in Ukraine, record inflation, and feared gas shortages have taken their toll on the German economy, a drastic slump failed to materialize. The German economy remained relatively...

Reducing carbon emissions is essential to meeting climate targets. What is unclear, however, is which measures are required to do so and what impact they would have on economic growth. In this Weekly Report, a macroeconomic model is used to observe four scenarios in comparison to a baseline...

Following the winter recession and stagnation in the second quarter of 2023, the economic upswing is proceeding at a sluggish pace, contrary to expectations over the summer. Weak foreign demand and ongoing inflation have proven to be slowing economic growth. For the time being, private...

The unequal distribution of labor income in Germany is a hotly debated topic among policymakers and the general public alike. However, the relevant data for calculating the distribution is usually available with a delay of sometimes over two years. Accordingly, previous studies have only been...

The recovery of the German economy is becoming an exercise in patience. In the third quarter of 2023 the economy fared worse than expected, in particular because private households continued to spend their money conservatively despite climbing wages and falling inflation. Both private...

The German economy will likely contract in the first quarter of 2024 due to still heightened inflation and weak demand, which was already weighing on German economic output in 2023. Inflation, which is falling in both Germany and the euro area overall, is expected to return close to the European...