Germany did not establish a statutory minimum wage until 2015. The new wage floor was set at an initial level of €8.50 per hour. When it was introduced, about 11 percent of German employees earned less than that amount. Based on descriptive figures, qualitative research and...

Among policy-makers and academics there is a controversial discussion whether the tax mix influences labor market performance in advanced industrialized countries. Many economists argue that the total tax burden rather than the tax-mix matters for aggregate employment, whereas neither the burden...

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...