The European Union faces several interlinked challenges: how to protect the environment and enhance sustainability; how to reduce unemployment and enhance competitiveness in the context of growing globalization; how to reduce regional disparities among and within member countries. The recent...

In 1999 the red/green administration in Germany induced an ecological tax reform, which burdens energy consumption and uses the tax revenue to reduce social security distributions. As in other countries the design of the taxation does not follow textbook considerations, but is marked by many...