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...

Current political discussions in Germany and other European countries illustrate the importance accorded to revenue and distribution effects of tax reforms. Whereas widely recognized concepts of effective tax measures can provide important insights into the incentives of taxation they do not...

The process of globalization has an important impact on national tax policies. Most of the literature on taxation of capital in open economies does not focus directly on the political decision making process and assumes that the desired tax policy is responding to objective underlying tradeoffs....

We study fair and efficient tax-benefi t schemes based on income and non-income factors under partial control. Partial control means that each factor is a speci fic mixture of unobserved ability (randomly drawn by nature) and effort (chosen by individuals who differ in tastes). Factors differ in...

Using data from the 1997 and 2002 waves of the German Socio-Economic Panel and from official statistics, the present paper studies whether natives are less supportive of state help for the unemployed in regions where the share of foreigners among the unemployed is high. The effect of immigration...

The recent financial crisis has put the German banking sector under enormous pressure. Besides the macroeconomic drivers like, for example, the expansionary monetary policy in major countries, insufficient risk management and weak corporate governance systems have been identified as the main...

Knowledge and technological change are often assumed to be the driving forces for long run economic growth. Regions with a higher level of knowledge compared to other regions exhibit a higher per-capita income on average. Agglomeration effects can lead to a steady increase of income and widen...

Establishing a new firm is a complex process which comprises many tasks. A common assumption in the theoretical literature on entrepreneurship is therefore that interdisciplinarity is important for successfully running a new firm. Empirically it is still an open question whether...

Economic theory suggests that financing constraints may occur due to capital market imperfections. These particularly affect investments in innovation projects as such projects are typically characterized by a high degree of uncertainty, complexity and specificity. Financing innovation...

The law on labour market reforms has severely limited the maximum benefit period for the elderly; with cuts of up to 14 months, depending on the age group. Our paper examines this natural experiment and shows that for the age groups in question, the transition rates from employment to...