The obsolete capital stock in eastern Germany has to be rebuilt. This will increase the capital demand in Germany for the next few years. In addition to the increased demand for capital, government transfers need to be financed. The macroeconomic accounting identity requires that net savings of...

We identify investor moral hazard in the German fiscal federation. Our identification strategy is based on a variable, which was used by the German Federal Constitutional Court as an indicator to determine eligibility of two German states (Länder) to a bail-out, the interest payments-to-revenue...

During the next decades the populations of most developed countries will grow older as a result of the low level of birth rates since the 1970s and/or the continuously increasing life expectancy. We show within a Generational Accounting framework how unsustainable the public finances of France,...

Die bestehenden Regeln zur Begrenzung der Staatsverschuldung im föderalen System Deutschlands sind unzureichend. Eine Aufteilung der Maastricht-Kriterien auf die Gebietskörperschaften setzt keine Anreize zur Vermeidung der Neuverschuldung, sofern die Obergrenzen erfüllt sind. Wir schlagen...

Die Finanzreform des Jahres 2006 war im Wesentlichen darauf gerichtet, die Entscheidungsblockaden zwischen Bund und Ländern durch die Reduzierung zustimmungsbedürftiger Gesetzte aufzubrechen. Die Föderalismuskommission II diskutiert nunmehr weitere Reformen der Finanzverfassung. In der...

In a New Keynesian DSGE model with non-Ricardian consumers, we show that automatic stabilization according to a countercyclical spending rule following the idea of the debt brake is well suited both to steer the economy and in terms of welfare. In particular, the adjustment account set up to...