In 2016, the South African government introduced a comprehensive reform to simplify and harmonize the pension system in order to incentivize pension savings and increase the fairness of the retirement system. Using administrative tax micro-data, we assess the impact of the 2016 reform and find...

A Danish tax reform, decided in May 2009 and taking effect from the beginning of 2010, lowered the marginal tax rate on top bracket taxable income from 63% to 56%. Because contributions to pension accounts are tax deductible, the reform provided an incentive to increase pension contributions...

A Danish tax reform, decided in May 2009 and taking effect from the beginning of 2010, lowered the marginal tax rate on top bracket taxable income from 63% to 56%. Because contributions to pension accounts are tax deductible, the reform provided an incentive to increase pension contributions...

Governments use tax expenditures to boost investment, innovation and employment. However, these schemes are largely opaque, costly and often ineffective in reaching their stated goals. They also frequently trigger unwanted side effects. In order to improve the performance of these tools, the...

This paper examines the effects of management practices on effective tax rates (ETR) in a sample of medium and large manufacturing firms in Ecuador. We use a novel data set on management practice scores matched with administrative tax data from the Superintendence of Companies and the Internal...

No good comparable data on sizes of cultural sectors of the countries of Europe exist. Still, local and national governments of Europe spend substantial resources on culture and cultural sectors contribute significantly to employment and national income. After briefly describing special features...

Bei der Vergabe und Abwicklung subventionspolitischer Darlehen sind die ausführenden Kreditinstitute häufig mit komplexer Unsicherheit konfrontiert: Diese besteht zum einen hinsichtlich des Schuldnerverhaltens, da dem Kreditgeber nicht immer bekannt ist, mit welchem Typ von Kreditnehmer zu...

This essay reviews new histories of the role of game theory and rational decision-making in shaping the social sciences, economics among them, in the post war period. The recent books The World the Game Theorists Made by Paul Erickson and How Reason Almost Lost Its Mind by Paul Erickson, Judy...

This paper examines how the governance context and financial institutions may relate to different aspects of a country's financial system before and after a crisis. Using a fixed-effects regression model for panel data and a comparative perspective, we assess longitudinal trends in the...

Most economists' instinctive reaction to price controls is that they are harmful. If enforced, they result in shortages and resource misallocation. With weak enforcement they often result in black markets, and high transaction costs. In this paper we assess the pros and cons of rice price...