The trend of increasing inequality in the distribution of income and wealth in most developed countries has led to calls for corrective tax increases for the rich and wealthy. Such calls are often confronted with the claim that higher taxes on top personal incomes, corporate income and wealth...

A central cause of the crisis, which the public debate has taken little notice of so far, is the rapid increase of income inequality in many industrialised countries, but also in some emerging economies. In the USA many private households have reacted to stagnating real incomes by increasingly...

We analyse the long-run imbalances of finance-dominated capitalism underlying the present crisis - which began in 2007 - with a focus on developments in the US and Germany. We argue that beyond inefficient regulation of the financial sector, the severeness of the present crisis has been mainly...

German fiscal policy is nowadays often presented as a shining example due to successful budget consolidation after the Great Recession. However, the idea that the German success is the result of a well-thought-out economic strategy that could therefore serve as a role model for other countries...

Budgetary pressures and the debate on increasing inequality caused by the global financial and economic crisis have also revived public and scholarly interest in tax policies. While some international coordination attempts aim at a more effective enforcement of existing tax laws, a number of...