This paper presents a case study on commissioned economic research in Germany. We find deplorable methodological and empirical shortcomings in a prominent study by Munich's ifo-Institute, on aspects of horizontal fiscal revenue sharing between German states. We suspect that this may not be an...

Some German states enjoy substantial privileges in the established system of horizontal fiscal trasnfers. This is due to an artificial inflating of population. Stimulated by a ruling of the Supreme Court, a study by Munich's ifo-institute argues that the degree of inflating is too high. We...

This paper presents a case study on non-academic economic research in Germany. We find deplorable methodological and empirical shortcomings in a prominent study by Munich's ifoinstitute, which studies aspects of the federal legislation of transfer payments between German states. We suspect that...