In an efficiency wage economy with variable profits, a shift from payroll to employment taxes will reduce unemployment if the tax level is held constant at the initial wage. However, unem-ployment will rise if firms are constrained to zero profits in the long-run and if tax revenues are...

In an efficiency wage economy, lump-sum severance pay from which shirkers can be excluded raises employment. However, severance payments are usually related to wages. It is shown that earnings-related, mandated severance pay will have ambiguous employment effects if effort can be varied...

The fraction of works councillors belonging to a trade union in Germany is much higher than union density among employees. If works councils represent the face of unions, union membership of employees should be related positively to the existence of works councils and their proximity to unions....

Decisions by firms and individuals on the extent of their tax payments have generally been treated as separate choices. Empirically, a positive relationship between corporate and personal income tax evasion can be observed. The theoretical analysis in this paper shows that a manager's decision...

Previous studies of dismissal protection have largely been based on the analysis of the rules on the books. However, actual outcomes often rely on the involvement of courts. Our model takes this feature into account and explains how relative lobbying power of unions and employer associations in...

If tax obligations are met, the balanced-budget substitution of an ad valorem tax on output for a specific tax not only raises a monopolist’s production but also represents a Pareto improvement. However, if tax avoidance or evasion is feasible and the marginal costs of such actions...

type="main" xml:lang="en" <title type="main">Abstract</title> <p>Applying a framework of perfect competition under uncertainty, we contribute to the discussion of whether or not ad valorem taxes and specific taxes are equivalent. While this equivalence holds without price uncertainty, we show that ad valorem taxes and...</p>

In 1996, statutory sick pay was reduced for private sector workers in Germany. Using the empirical observation that trade union members are dismissed less often than non-members, we construct a model to predict how absence behaviour will respond to the sick pay reform. We show that union members...