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 paper reviews the literature on distributional effects of energy and carbon taxation with focus on microsimulation models. Most studies find that direct energy and carbon taxation tends to be regressive. Regressive effects occur mostly with respect to taxation of electricity or space...

This paper reviews the existing evidence on the effects of tax reforms on output levels and growth over the short and long run from different strands of the literature. It develops and applies criteria to evaluate the usefulness of ex-post estimates to predict the effects of tax reforms ex-ante....

The aim of this paper is to construct an indicator of potential growth for developed countries using the insights of the theoretical and empirical growth literature. The Pooled Mean Group Estimator of Pesaran, Shin and Smith (1999) that employs a panel data technique is used. This estimator is...

Arbitrarily designed borders have been identified by a recent literature as an important reason why sub-Saharan Africa remains one of the poorest regions on the globe. Accordingly, border changes may be a way to promote growth on the African continent. In this paper, we study the effect of...

Although there is anecdotal evidence that merger control may constitute a barrier to the integration of European retail banking markets, systematic empirical evidence is missing until now. This paper aims to fill this gap. Based on a unique dataset on the transparency on merger control in the EU...

Gaining access to technological assets and patents, in particular, has long been a major motive and objective for firm acquisitions. On the one hand, patents are used as a building instrument for the acquirer's technology portfolio. On the other hand, patents can be attractive because of their...

This paper analyses the employment consequences of policies aimed to support biofuels in the European Union. The promotion of biofuel use has been advocated as a means to promote the sustainable use of natural resources and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions originating from transport activities...