Several recent studies suggest that equalizing transfers in a federal system may distort the tax policy decisions of states. We study this issue for the German federal fiscal system. In a simple theoretical model, we first identify a substitution and an income effect of equalizing transfers. Our...

This paper looks at reform proposals for the fiscal transfer system in Germany to take account of differences in governmental purchasing powers across states, i.e. differences in governmental costs of public goods and services. Since data on differences in governmental purchasing power is...