The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the European Union has been in a process of reform since the early 1990s. As a result of reforms, agricultural market regulations have become more liberal and direct payments have been introduced which are to a large extent decoupled from production. In...

In Germany, two observations can be made over the past 20 years: First, income inequality has been constantly increasing while, second, the average household size has been declining dramatically. The analysis of income distribution relies on equivalence-weighted incomes which take into account...

We empirically investigate the distributional consequences of the Riester scheme, the main private pension subsidization program in Germany. We find that 38% of the aggregate subsidy accrues to the top two deciles of the population, but only 7.3% to the bottom two. Nonetheless the Riester scheme...

Using German income distribution in 2009, this paper studies the redistributive and revenue effects of bracket creep under various inflation scenarios. We develop a tax micro-simulation model for the newly available Panel on Household Finance (PHF) data. The simulation yields an inverted...

For the impartial observer of German regions, differences in regional industrial structures and prosperity are quite obvious. On the one hand, there are regions characterised by different industries, firm structures and labour qualification profiles. On the other hand, some of these regions are...

We examine the interplay between changes in the functional distribution of income and the distribution of market income among households. We use micro data from the German Socio-Economic Panel as well as macro data from the German Federal Statistical Office from 2002 to 2008. We categorize and...

Mobility of top incomes matters for both the openness of the income elite and the share of total income that this group receives. It is thus an important complement information to the growing snapshot literature on top income concentration. I use microlevel panel data of German income tax files...

A popular argument for a federal minimum wage is that it will prevent in-work poverty and reduce income inequality. We examine this assertion for Germany, a welfare state with a relative generous means-tested social minimum and high marginal tax rates. Our analysis is based on a microsimulation...

A popular argument for a federal minimum wage is that it will prevent in-work poverty and reduce income inequality. We examine this assertion for Germany, a welfare state with a relative generous means-tested social minimum and high marginal tax rates. Our analysis is based on a microsimulation...

This paper studies the redistributive and revenue effects of bracket creep in Germany under various inflation scenarios and evaluates the feasibility to charge a rich tax to fight bracket creep for the income distribution in 2009. Using a tax micro-simulation model developed for the newly...