Im Vorfeld der Bundestagswahl 2013 findet in Deutschland eine intensive Debatte über die Umverteilungswirkung der Einkommensteuer statt. Insbesondere mit der Senkung des Spitzensteuersatzes auf zwischenzeitlich 42 und nun 45 Prozent wird eine überproportionale Bevorzugung hoher Einkommen...

The proposal involves the establishment of ?welfare accounts? for every person in a country. There are to be four accounts: a retirement account (covering pensions), an unemployment account (covering unemployment support), a human capital account (covering education and training), and a health...

With a mandate, U.S. policy of ethanol tax credits designed to reduce oil consumption does the exact opposite. A tax credit is a direct gasoline consumption subsidy with no effect on the ethanol price and therefore does not help either corn or ethanol producers. To understand this, consider...

The overall costs of the payment system to society are considerable. These costs depend on the relative usage of the available payment instruments, which differ in the costs that each entails to market participants in the payment chain. In the Netherlands, debit card payments have become less...

The relationships between urban form, mobility and sustainability have been widely debated in recent times, often with some prejudice and ideological touch, unfortunately. The advantages and disadvantages of the « compact city » vs. the dispersed city or « ville éclatée », have been...

The social costs of unemployment, in terms of unemployment's impact on European citizens' life satisfaction, relate strongly to unemployment duration. At any level of general joblessness, reducing long-term unemployment is more important than reducing the number of people unemployed at any point...

Determined the need for prediction of local spending by aggregate spending, the choice of forecasting on the basis of economic-mathematical modeling.

What does a pack of cigarettes cost a smoker, the smoker's family, and society? This longitudinal study on the private and social costs of smoking calculates that the cost of smoking to a 24-year-old woman smoker is $86,000 over a lifetime; for a 24-year-old male smoker the cost is $183,000. The...

The paper reviews the case for special taxes on gambling services from a traditional public-finance perspective. Evidence suggests that high taxes are likely to hurt recreational consumers badly while not necessarily mitigating problem play. Taxes on gambling are also shown to be regressive,...