We analyze different alternatives how a common unemployment insurance system for the euro area (EA) could be designed and assess their effectiveness to act as an insurance device in the presence of asymmetric macroeconomic shocks. Running counterfactual simulations based on micro data for the...

This paper is the first to provide evidence of efficient taxation of groups with heterogeneous levels of 'tax morale'. We set up an optimal income tax model where high tax morale implies a high subjective cost of evading taxes. The model predicts that 'nice guys finish last': groups with higher...

Spätestens bis Ende 2019 müssen die Finanzbeziehungen zwischen Bund und Ländern neu geordnet sein. Der Solidarpakt II und die Regelungen des Länderfinanzausgleichs laufen zu diesem Zeitpunkt aus. Hinzu kommt das Neuverschuldungsverbot für die Länder ab dem Jahr 2020. Die Politik ist daher...

The German Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) submitted an order for referral to the European Court of Justice (CJEU) in 2014, asking it to clarify the compatibility of the "Outright Monetary Transactions" (OMT)-Programme with European Union law. The OMT-Programme prepares...

Because of endogeneity problems very few studies have been able to identify the incidence of corporate taxes on wages. We circumvent these problems by using an 11-year panel of data on 11,441 German municipalities' tax rates, 8 percent of which change each year, linked to administrative matched...

The success of the flat rate tax in Eastern Europe suggests that this concept could also be a model for the welfare states of Western Europe. The present paper uses a simulation model to analyse the effects of revenue neutral flat rate tax reforms on equity and efficiency for the case of...