We empirically investigate the distributional consequences of the Riester scheme, the main private pension subsidization program in Germany. We find that 38% of the aggregate subsidy accrues to the top two deciles of the population, but only 7.3% to the bottom two. Nonetheless the Riester scheme...

Im deutschen Einkommensteuersystem wird Ersparnisbildung in Kapitallebensversicherungen durch die Absetzbarkeit der Versicherungsprämien bei der Ermittlung des zu versteuernden Einkommens und durch die Steuerfreiheit der Endausschüttung begünstigt. Die daraus resultierende Steuerersparnis ist...

Foreign-owned subsidiaries make significant contributions to national Research and Development (R&D) in many host countries. Policymakers often support subsidiaries through R&D grants and R&D tax credits. A key objective of this funding is to leverage R&D-driven firm performance benefits for the...

Tax incentives are a key component of governments’ investment policy mix as they directly impact companies’ tax burden. In this paper, we illustrate the EU’s tax attractiveness as investment location over time in terms of effective average tax rates and evaluate potential tax reform...

Since 2002 the German government seeks to stimulate private retirement savings by means of special allowances and tax exemptions - the so-called Riester scheme. We apply matching and panel regression techniques to assess the impact of the Riester scheme on households' propensities to save in a...

Governmental activities in welfare states influence private charitable giving predominantly in two ways: (1) government spending on the provision of public goods may cause crowding out of private charitable contributions; and (2) tax incentives may boost private charitable giving. For a rich...

This paper provides new evidence that taxes affect capital structure choice, using a unique and comprehensive panel data set which covers 86,173 German non-financial firms over the years 1973–2008. Following the Graham methodology to simulate marginal tax rates, we find a statistically and...