In this paper six authors propose guidelines for German labor market policy, to overcome current discouragement and lead to a new balance of social security and individual competetiveness. Crucial aspects in this regard should be a reformed tax system based on excise instead of income taxes, and...

Restrictions on work hours are more important in countries with a large welfare state. We show that this empirical observation is consistent with the strategic effects of such restrictions in a welfare state in the context of optimal direct taxation in the tradition of Mirrlees (1971). Our...