This article describes ZEW-EviSTA®, the microsimulation model developed and used at ZEW - Centre for European Economic Research in Mannheim. The model simulates the German tax and transfer system using household micro level data. By estimating fiscal effects, labor market outcomes as well as...

Previous research argues that law expresses social values and could, therefore, influence individual behavior independently of enforcement and penalization. Using three laboratory experiments on tax avoidance and evasion, we study how legality affects individuals' decisions. We find that,...

In the tax literature, the tax effort index for any country is usually measured by the ratio of the actual tax ratio to the predicted ratio. This reflects mainly the variance in the taxable capacity of a country. A high value of tax effort index indicates that a particular country is collecting...

Empirical evidence suggests that managerial overconfidence and government guarantees contribute substantially to excessive risk-taking in the banking industry. This paper incorporates managerial overconfidence and limited bank liability into a principal-agent model, where the bank manager...

The employment effects of an ecological tax reform depend decisively on the presence of a profit tax and on the extent to which profits are taxed. This is shown in a model where firms have monopoly power on product markets and bargain over wages with unions on the labour market. In the setting,...

We propose a novel time-varying parameters mixed-frequency dynamic factor model which is integrated into a dynamic model averaging framework for macroeconomic nowcasting. Our suggested model can efficiently deal with the nature of the real-time data flow as well as parameter uncertainty and...

Multivariate distributional forecasts have become widespread in recent years. To assess the quality of such forecasts, suitable evaluation methods are needed. In the univariate case, calibration tests based on the probability integral transform (PIT) are routinely used. However, multivariate...

In der vorliegenden Arbeit untersuchen wir die Eignung der ifo-Geschäftserwartungen und der ZEW-Konjunkturerwartungen als Frühindikatoren für die deutsche Industrieproduktion. Anhand von Granger-Kausalitätstests wird gezeigt, dass die auf Umfragen unter Finanzanalysten basierenden...

We analyze four economic sentiment indicators for the German economy regarding their ability to forecast economic activity. Using cross correlations and Granger causality tests we find that the ifo business expectations (ifo), the Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) and the ZEW Indicator of Economic...