German municipalities have substantial autonomy in setting taxes on two distinct tax bases: business profits and property values. We use this setting and a two-step approach to explore whether implemented tax policy is consistent with the seminal inverse-elasticity rule. First, we estimate the...

Seit der Unternehmensteuerreform 2008/2009 haben sich die steuerlichen Rahmenbedingungen in Deutschland im Grundsatz nicht geändert. Eine Analyse der deutschen Steuerpolitik in der laufenden Legislaturperiode zeigt, dass sich Änderungen lediglich auf die Beseitigung verfassungswidriger...

Vor einem Jahrzehnt wurde das Hauptgutachten des Wissenschaftlichen Beirats der Bundesregierung für Globale Umweltveränderungen (WBGU) veröffentlicht. Dieser Versuch einer Bestandsaufnahme im Jahre 2011 hat national und international Impulse gesetzt und Orientierung gegeben. Der WBGU ging...

A decade ago, the German Advisory Council to the Federal Government on Global Environmental Change (Wissenschaftlichen Beirats der Bundesregierung für Globale Umweltveränderungen - WBGU) published its main report. This attempt to take stock in 2011 made an impact and provided orientation on...

Concurrent taxation is a feature of many federal systems. As a consequence of this fact, the tax policy of one level of government affects the tax base of the other. This paper carries out a theoretical analysis of the interdependent tax-setting decisions of federal and regional governments,...

We use a stylized model to show that, if transfers to the poor are founded on a security argument, there is a negative trade-off between law enforcement expenditures and criminality. In contrast, if transfers are based on altruism, the correlation between the same variables may appear positive....

The paper investigates the impact the provision of public capital has on the demand for private capital and labour using a cost function with public capital included as a fixed unpaid factor of production. Special attention is paid to the examination of the influence tax vs. debt financing of...

This paper examines whether the productivity growth in the West-German states is influenced by the provision of public infrastructure. Medium-term labour productivity growth and output growth varies a lot between German states. This differences are more pronounced during the eighties. The...

The present paper presents an analysis of the impact of public infrastructure capital on regional economic developments in Germany. After presenting some descriptive statistical data on the economies of the 11 regions in (West) Germany a simple theoretical model of a cost-minimizing firm is...

In 2013 the OECD introduced its Action Plan on base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS). One of the major concerns of this Plan is a strategic use of intangible assets as an instrument for profit shifting. The main purpose of this paper is to test whether multinational enterprises use intangibles...