This paper offers a first empirical investigation of how labor taxation (income and payroll taxes) affects individuals' well-being. For identification, we exploit exogenous variation in tax rules over time and across demographic groups using 26 years of German panel data. We find that the tax...

This paper offers a first empirical investigation of how labor taxation (income and payroll taxes) affects individuals' well-being. For identification, we exploit exogenous variation in tax rules over time and across demographic groups using 26 years of German panel data. We find that the tax...

Shifting taxes from labor income to consumption is regularly suggested as a measure to induce work incentives. We investigate the effect of increases in the Value Added Tax on labor supply and the income distribution in Germany, which is compensated by a revenue-neutral reduction in...

A common assumption in the optimal taxation literature is that the social planner maximizes a welfarist social welfare function with weights decreasing with income. However, high transfer withdrawal rates in many countries imply very low weights for the working poor in practice. We reconcile...

Shifting taxes from labor income to consumption is regularly suggested as a measure to induce work incentives. We investigate the effect of increases in the Value Added Tax on labor supply and the income distribution in Germany, which is compensated by a revenue-neutral reduction in...

The 16 German federal states introduced smoking bans on different dates during 2007 and 2008. These bans restricted smoking in enclosed public places, particularly in restaurants and bars. This study examines the effects of smoking bans on self-assessed health. Using data from the Socio-Economic...

This paper provides the first empirical analysis of the (short-term) welfare consequences of an alcohol ban. Using subjective well-being data to proxy individual welfare, I apply a regression discontinuity design where the date of the implementation of the ban in the German federal state of...

Der vorliegende Beitrag untersucht die Verteilungswirkungen der Hochschulfinanzierung im Längsschnitt. Die Leistungen, die Hochschulabsolventen in Form der Hochschulbildung erhalten, werden den hochschulbezogenen (Steuer-)Lasten der Hochschulabsolventen gegenübergestellt. Es zeigt sich, dass...

The idea of higher wealth taxes to finance the mounting public debt in the wake of the financial crises is gaining ground in several OECD countries. We evaluate the revenue and distributional effects of a one-time capital levy on personal net wealth that is currently on the German political...

Der vorliegende Beitrag untersucht die Verteilungswirkungen der Hochschulfinanzierung im Längsschnitt. Die Leistungen, die Hochschulabsolventen in Form der Hochschulbildung erhalten, werden den hochschulbezogenen (Steuer-)Lasten der Hochschulabsolventen gegenübergestellt. Es zeigt sich, dass...