[Conclusion] The overall picture of the current status of implementation of the Fiscal Compact into national law is rather ambiguous. On the one side, there are countries like Spain and Portugal, which have been severely affected by the Euro crisis, and appeared to have learned a lesson and...

We discuss the effect of formal political institutions (electoral systems, fiscal decentralization, presidential and parliamentary regimes) on the extent and direction of income (re-) distribution. Empirical evidence is presented for a large sample of 70 economies and a panel of 13 OECD...

This paper surveys possible motivations for having a net wealth tax. After giving a short overview over the state of wealth taxation in OECD countries, we discuss both popular arguments for such a tax, as well as economic arguments. It is argued that classical normative principles of taxation...

Public choice theory has originally been motivated by the need to correct the asymmetry, widespread in traditional welfare economics, between the motivational assumptions of market participants and policymakers: Those who played the game of politics should also be considered rational and...

This paper argues that an evolutionary approach to policy-making, which emphasizes openness to change and political variety, is particularly compatible with the central tenets of classical liberalism. The chief reasons are that classical liberalism acknowledges the ubiquity of uncertainty, as...

We discuss the effect of formal political institutions (electoral systems, fiscal decentralization, presidential and parliamentary regimes) on the extent and direction of income (re-) distribution. Empirical evidence is presented for a large sample of 70 economies and a panel of 13 OECD...

In this paper, we revisit the association between happiness and inequality. We argue that the perceived fairness of the income generation process affects this association. Building on a two-period model of individual life-time utility maximization, we predict that persons with higher perceived...

[Schlussfolgerungen] Das Gesamtbild der Umsetzung des Fiskalpaktes in nationales Recht ist zu diesem Zeitpunkt durchwachsen. Einerseits ist es erfreulich, dass gerade von der Krise stark betroffene Länder wie Spanien und Portugal sehr ernsthafte und vielversprechende Regelungen verabschiedet...

[Schlussfolgerungen] Das Gesamtbild der Umsetzung des Fiskalpaktes in nationales Recht ist zu diesem Zeitpunkt durchwachsen. Einerseits ist es erfreulich, dass gerade von der Krise stark betroffene Länder wie Spanien und Portugal sehr ernsthafte und vielversprechende Regelungen verabschiedet...

In den letzten Jahren hat sich ein breiter Literaturstrang etabliert, der neue Formen paternalistischer Interventionen vorschlägt, um individuelle Entscheidungen zu verbessern, die nicht vollständig rational sind. Die Motivation hierfür liegt in zahlreichen Verhaltensanomalien und anderen...