Gegenstand dieses Beitrags ist eine quantitativ orientierte Diskussion einiger Wirkungen einer Umstrukturierung des Steuersystems anhand der neuesten und wesentlich erweiterten Version des Konstanzer aggregierten Ungleichgewichtsmodells für die westdeutsche Volkswirtschaft für den Zeitraum von...

This paper studies the role of direct democracy in ensuring efficient and cost effective provision of goods and services in the public sector. The sample consists of the population of municipalities in the German State of Bavaria, where in the mid-1990s considerable direct democratic reforms...

In this paper we use a simple bureaucracy model of fiscal illusion to analyze the impact of intergovernmental grants on the cost effciency of local jurisdictions. We find that a higher degree of redistribution within a system of fiscal equalization or an increase in the amount of grants received...

In this paper we investigate the determinants of local governments' technical efficiency in road maintenance for a panel of German counties using a broad variety of estimation approaches. More specifically, we calculate efficiency indices using non-parametric (DEA) and parametric (stochastic...

Recently a wide and empirically-backed consensus has emerged arguing that direct democratic control over government's spending decisions through initiatives and referenda constrains government size. But what happens if budgetary matters are excluded from the voters' right of the initiative? I...

In the tax policy debate, differentiation of value-added taxes is often justified by distributional concerns. Our quantitative analysis for Germany indicates that such concerns are misplaced. We find that the abolition of VAT differentiation has only negligible redistributive effects. Instead,...

German municipalities are expected to suffer from (often significant) population losses in the upcoming decades. We assess these local governments’ vulnerability to the fiscal consequences of this demographic decline through two means (using a sample of 1021 municipalities in the state of...

This paper analyses whether strategic motives for patenting influence the characteristics of companies' patent portfolios. We use the number of citations and oppositions to represent these characteristics. The investigation is based on survey and patent data from German companies. We find clear...

Wir diskutieren die Faktoren für eine erfolgreiche Umsetzung eines Systems des betrieblichen Vorschlagswesens und anderer Maßnahmen zur Stimulierung des Innovationserfolgs. Im Anschluss wird die Wirkung des betrieblichen Vorschlagswesens auf den Innovationserfolg empirisch überprüft. Als...

Short-term training measures are the most important intervention of German active labor market policy in terms of persons promoted. However, evidence on the impacts of programs is missing. This study analyzes the effects of these programs on the individual unemployment duration in West Germany....