This paper advances the hypothesis that the EUS crisis was caused by German unification. The unification has implied a massive resource demand which parallels the US resource demand following Reagan's tax reforms in the eighties. The resource demand revised the German interest rates relative to...

This paper is a critical review of east German privatization policy. It is argued that the restitution of old property rights has been a major obstacle to investment and that the attempt to sell two thirds of an economy in the market place is bound to be a failure. Such an attempt implies...

While it is usually argued that direct and indirect taxes should be added for meaningful international comparisons of country competitiveness, this paper argues that the opposite may be true. It is possible that a country with a high value-added tax needs a high capital income tax to maintain...

This paper develops a model of a small open economy that produces an export good with domestic labour and imported energy and is stuck in an unemployment situation resulting from an excessive fixed net-of-tax wage rate. We study a revenue-neutral green tax reform that substitutes energy for wage...

While the old systems competition took place with closed borders, globalisation has brought about a new type of systems competition that is driven by the mobility of factors of production. The new systems competition will likely imply the erosion of the European welfare state, induce a race to...

Opening Europe's borders in 1993 makes the allocation of resources more vulnerable to differences in the national tax rates. The first part of the paper demonstrates that direct consumer purchases will imply distortions resulting from diverging VAT rates and it clarifies why the frequently cited...

Open borders imply systems competition. This paper studies the implications of systems competition for the national competition rules. It is shown that an equilibrium where all countries retain their antitrust laws does not exist, since abolishing this law makes it possible for a single country...

Business representatives and union leaders in highly industrialised countries often accuse the governments of less-developed countries of practising social dumping in the sense of deliberately neglecting work-place safety legislation, co-determination rights and other fringe benefits which...