Using a large linked employer-employee data set for Germany, we find that the existence of a works council is associated with a lower separation rate to employment, in particular for men and workers with low tenure. While works council monopoly effects show up in all specifications, clear voice...

This paper provides an overview on the existing systems of natural hazards insurance in Europe, their structural characteristics and peculiarities. It also discusses the difficulties of an adaptation of these systems to climate change and a growing number of natural disasters. Using the case of...

In this paper, we define a new class of richness measures. In contrast to the often used headcount, these new measures are sensitive to changes in rich person's income and therefore allow for a more sophisticated analysis of richness. We demonstrate the application of these new measures to...

The introduction of a flat tax is supposed to have several advantages. Administration and compliance costs are reduced, as well as incentives for tax evasion. Furthermore, positive employment and growth effects are expected. Despite these advantages, a flat rate tax is not very popular in most...

This paper deals with the impact of electoral competition on politicians´ outside earnings. We propose a simple theoretical model with politicians facing a tradeoff between allocating their time to political effort or to an alternative use generating outside earnings. The model has a testable...

Mircrosimulation models (MSM) and Computable General Equilibrium models (CGE) have both been widely used in policy analysis. The combination of these two model types allows the utilisation of the advantages of both types. The aim of this paper is to describe the state-of-the-art in simulation...