Deutschland wird beim Strom zu einer Hochpreisinsel. Importrisiken bei Energie verschlechtern die Wettbewerbsfähigkeit des Landes. Gerade für energieintensive Branchen wird der Standort sehr unattraktiv. Zu diesen drei Ergebnissen kommt eine neue Preis- und Risiko-Analyse vom ZEW Mannheim und...

Recently a wide and empirically-backed consensus has emerged arguing that direct democratic control over government's spending decisions through initiatives and referenda constrains government size. But what happens if budgetary matters are excluded from the voters' right of the initiative? I...

This paper uses the quasi-experiment of Germanyś reunification to identify local tax mimicking by municipalities in Eastern-Germany. After reunification, East-German municipalities were allowed to independently set, for the first time in decades, local business and property tax rates. I explore...

Is government ideology important for fiscal policy? I study this question with data from all German States over the period 1975-2005. To identify the effect of ideology, I rely on a fuzzy regression discontinuity design. I find that left-wing state governments spend more than state governments...