The empirical and theoretical literature on long-term relationships in public finance is dominated by two approaches: Fiscal sustainability and Wagner’s law of an increasing state activity. In this paper, we argue that these two relationships should be analyzed simultaneously and not...

Using German income distribution in 2009, this paper studies the redistributive and revenue effects of bracket creep under various inflation scenarios. We develop a tax micro-simulation model for the newly available Panel on Household Finance (PHF) data. The simulation yields an inverted...

We analyse tax revenue elasticities by applying dynamic models to a new disaggregated dataset for Germany, which is adjusted for the effects of tax reforms. We estimate long-run elasticities that are substantially lower than in comparable studies for profit-related taxes and are slightly lower...

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...

Despite strongly equalized per capita revenue and similar budgetary institutions, fiscal performance is increasingly diverging across German federal states. Given that state and local governments are endowed with expenditure autonomy, this paper investigates whether the composition of...

Bank distress can have severe negative consequences for the stability of the financial system, the real economy, and for public finances. Regimes for the restructuring and resolution of banks, financed by bank levies and fiscal backstops, seek to reduce these costs. Bank levies attempt to...

We assess the influence of moneyed interests on legislative decisions. Our theory predicts that the vote outcome distribution and donation flows in a legislature feature a discontinuity at the approval threshold of bills if special interest groups are involved in vote buying. Testing the...

Political parties play a crucial gatekeeping role in elections, including controlling electoral resources, candidate recruitment, and electoral list compositions. In making these strategic choices, parties aim to encourage candidates to invest in the campaign, while also trying to secure...

We assess the transmission of monetary policy shocks on oil prices using a VAR model. We identify monetary policy and financial activity shocks disentangled from demand and oil supply shocks using sign restrictions. We obtain the following main findings. (i) Monetary policy and financial...

Die Klimaschutzdiskussion wird von der Frage dominiert, welche gesamtwirtschaftlichen Kosten mit der Umgestaltung des Energiesystems zu klimaverträglichen Strukturen verbunden sind. Höhe und Verteilung dieser Kosten entscheiden darüber, ob sich umweltpolitische Strategien zum nachhaltigen...