Selten hat ein Wirtschaftsbuch so viel Aufmerksamkeit erregt wie Thomas Pikettys Das Kapital im 21. Jahrhundert . Seine These, die ungleiche Verteilung von Einkommen und Vermögen durch Enteignung zu beheben, fand rasch zahlreiche Anhänger und hat eine breite gesellschaftliche Debatte...

We use a two period model to analyze the contractual relationship between entrepreneurs and venture capitalists in an open regional economy. First, we describe the first best investment contract, we study the second best investment contract in the presence of private information, and then we...

During the last thirty years most OECD countries have accumulated large public debts. The same period has been characterized by a considerable increase in the concentration of income at the top of the distribution and by substantial cuts to taxation imposed on high incomes. The paper argues that...

This paper questions the widely accepted view that deficits have real effects in the life cycle model. Standard analyses of deficits within life cycle models treat the government as a dictatorial entity that can effect any intergenerational redistribution it desires. In contrast, this paper...

This paper examines how the borrowing decisions of local governments, often financially constrained, respond to a shock that affects the distribution of revenue from the central government. The shock stems from the discrete updating of population census data that is plausibly uncorrelated with...