The 'starving the beast' hypothesis claims that tax cuts lead to lower public spending, rather than higher debt levels and higher taxes in the future. This paper uses the institutional setting of German fiscal federalism to its advantage in order to explore how fiscal policy reacts to exogenous...

German fiscal policy is nowadays often presented as a shining example due to successful budget consolidation after the Great Recession. However, the idea that the German success is the result of a well-thought-out economic strategy that could therefore serve as a role model for other countries...

Starting from the secular fact of an increasing government´s share, a retrospective on Adolph Wagner´s writings seems worthwhile. A leading German economist of the Bismarck era, he first formulated the famous 'law of increasing state activity' for industrializing nations. After analyzing his...