Was the increase in income inequality in the US due to permanent shocks or merely to an increase in the variance of transitory shocks? The implications for consumption and welfare depend crucially on the answer to this question. We use CEX repeated cross-section data on consumption and income to...

Using new data on returns and risk factors the paper considers the stock performance on the Japanese market, which is the second largest in the world and operates under unique macroeconomic conditions. We find that the CAPM model is not an adequate approach for the Japanese market. The Carhart...

In this paper we show that findings of an apparently instable popularity function of U.S. presidents, as reported in the previous literature, are likely the consequence of the common use of linear estimation techniques. Employing Penalized Spline Smoothing in the context of Additive Mixed Models...

Corporate tax reforms carried out in EU countries since 1980 entail lower statutory tax rates and reductions in generous tax depreciation provisions. Several countries including the UK have reduced tax rates for SMEs. This study compares incentive effects of such reforms on the SMEs? investment...

This volume contains the contributions of a conference dealing with the consequences of the European Monetary Union for the macroeconometric modelling of the Euro area, which took place in Essen in 2000. At the end of the conference the participants were convinced that the discussions including...

Empirical analyses of economic inequality, poverty, and mobility in Germany are, to an increas-ing extent, using microdata from the German Federal Statistical Office's contribution to the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) as well as data from the German...

This paper explores whether more generous social spending polices in fact lead to less income inequality, or if redistributive outcomes are offset by behavioral disincentive effects. To account for the inherent endogeneity of social policies with regard to inequality levels, I apply the System...

Der seit der Finanzkrise steile Anstieg der Zinsdifferenzen zwischen europäischen Staatsanleihen bringt mehrere Mitgliedsländer der europäischen Währungsunion (EWU) unter erhebliche Refinanzierungsschwierigkeiten und wirft die Frage nach den Ursachen auf. Dieser Bericht fasst die Ergebnisse...