We show that tax competition in the EU is shaped by four interrelated institutional mechanisms: 1) Market integration, by reducing the transaction costs of cross-border tax arbitrage in the Single Market, 2) enlargement, by increasing the number and heterogeneity of states involved in intra-EU...

The paper analyses the course of Dutch financial policy since the demise of Keynesian full employment. How did the public expenditure ratio, the tax burden, and the deficit develop in the last twenty-five years? Why did the government lose control over public spending in the period between 1977...

In most industrialized countries the tax burden of poor people has increased dramatically over the last few decades. This book analyses both the political origins of this increase and its consequences for the labour market.

We develop a model in which firms in the financial market lobby the government to lower compulsory contributions to the public pension system. Firms lobby in order to increase demand from households for their old-age savings products. We conclude with a comparison of two major pension reforms in...

In der Diskussion über arbeitsmarktpolitische Reformen fordern nationale Regierungen und internationale Organisationen immer stärker das Lernen von anderen Ländern. Das politikwissenschaftliche Standardmodell zur Erklärung von Reformen der Arbeitsmarktpolitik ist jedoch zumeist rein...

Ausgangspunkt dieses Diskussionspapieres ist die von Fritz Scharpf vertretene Auf-fassung, dass wohlfahrtsstaatliche Institutionen maßgeblich an der Entwicklung unterschiedlicher Dienstleistungssektoren beteiligt sind. Anhand dieser Idee werden polit-ökonomische Hypothesen hergeleitet und...

The twin predicaments of German labour market performance and welfare state performance triggered an ongoing debate on reforming the German model. Recently, this debate has yielded an outcome in the form of the so-called Hartz laws, a bundle of labour market policies aimed at the reduction of...

The rise and fall of policies regulating early exit from labour markets remains enigmatic for comparative politics. Most explanations focus on structural or institutional causes. A missing source of national variation, this discussion paper argues, lies in cross-country differences in voters...