Declining inflation rates might have negative consequences for tax revenues. Phenomena like the inflationary bracket creep in a progressive income tax system do not work any longer. With this background the paper analyzes the extent of fiscal drag for OECD countries since 1965. Some...

This study analyzes the sensitivity of US giving to both business cycle fluctuations and trend growth. With tax revenues as a point of reference, US giving constitutes a relatively stable source of revenue. Total giving is characterized by a business cycle volatility which is comparable to the...

In this analysis, the informational content of central bank rhetoric is assessed based on the experience with the ECB since 1999. Among the ECB?s communication channels we focus on the monthly press conferences. Based on a counting of certain signal words we construct a wording indicator...

Energy markets and energy-intensive industries in all EU member states – especially in Germany – are subject to a diverse set of policies related to climate change. We analyse the potential efficiency losses from simultaneous application of emission taxes and emissions trading in qualitative...

The specification of the world closure, i.e. the way of closing the domestic economy model by incorporating the external sector, is a crucial component for those models in which production and consumption is not specified endogenously for all countries. This paper looks explicitly at the...

The objective of this paper is to present different equity rules that can be applied to the initial allocation of greenhouse gas entitlements and to analyse the potential impacts of these rules EU-wide as well as on the level of member states. The methodological framework used in the empirical...

In this paper, a practicable scheme of SO2-emission permits for European power producers is developed. Background is the second UN-ECE Sulphur Protocol from 1994 (Protocol of Oslo). After discussing some theoretical models of spatially differentiated permit schemes, evaluating the U.S. Acid Rain...