This paper investigates the long-term evolution of the tax system in Germany to explain why the political left has increasingly expanded taxation to its own clientele. The paper contrasts the second half of the 19th with the second half of the 20th century to show that some of the underlying...

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...