Grunderwerbsteuer im Länderfinanzausgleich: Umverteilung der Zusatzlast der Besteuerung

Apart from Bavaria and Saxony, all Federal States in Germany have considerably raised property transfer taxes in recent years. There is empirical evidence that increasing property transfer taxes leads to lower turnover on real estate markets. The corresponding negative fiscal impact is partly counterbalanced in the German fiscal equalisation scheme. This paper explicates the relationship between tax hikes and the transfer volume and calculates the responses of the fiscal equalisation scheme in various scenarios.     

Unerwünschte Veränderungen der realen Finanzkraftreihenfolge im Länderfinanzausgleich

Given that the current fiscal equalisation scheme needs to be changed by 2019, this paper looks at reform proposals for the fiscal transfer system in Germany to take account of differences in regional purchasing power across states, i.e. differences in the costs of providing public goods and services. Two different reform proposals for a modified transfer system are examined. The first one extends the current fiscal transfer system by additionally allowing for disparities in regional purchasing power across states; the second one links fiscal transfer payments entirely to disparities in regional purchasing power across states. The results show that a transfer system that explicitly accounts for differences in regional purchasing power across states would noticeably reduce the actual volume of redistribution.     

Wird es bald einen neuen Länderfinanzausgleich geben?

The federal financial equalisation among the 16 German federal states has once again become politically controversial. Two highly taxed states (Bavaria and Hesse) have appealed to the Federal Constitutional Court against excessive payments. Most of the other states have objected to this action. The contested regulations, created in 2001, are to apply until the end of 2019. How long the Court will need to reach a decision in the case is an open question. Parallel political negotiations on federal financial relations are also taking place. This short report provides an overview of the current financial dispute.     

Auswirkungen einer Lohnsteuerzerlegung nach Arbeitsort im Länderfinanzausgleich

In Germany the payroll tax revenue owed to the federal states is distributed exclusively according to the taxpayer’s residence. Many finance experts have long called for this revenue to be distributed at least partially based on the location where the work was done. Model calculations to estimate the financial consequences of such a redesign of the payroll tax distribution should be a useful contribution to the current negotiations on the reorganisation of federal-state financial relations in Germany.     

Kann Deutschland den Krisenländern der Eurozone helfen?

Wirtschaftsdienst - Trotz der guten wirtschaftlichen Lage in der Eurozone verzeichnen einige Krisenländer nach wie vor ein geringes Wachstum und eine hohe Arbeitslosigkeit. Diese Länder...     

Von der Staatsverschuldung zum Staatsbankrott?

The increase of sovereign debt and the crisis in the Eurozone led to a public discussion about the possibility and the causes of a sovereign default. This paper shows by looking at the development in the Eurozone that for a government defaulting on its debt the amount of sovereign debt is not crucial; the essential question is whether a government is able to borrow in its own currency and — if that is not the case — the amount of international debt of the whole country. This leads to important conclusions for European economic policy.     

Schulleistungsunterschiede zwischen den deutschen Ländern

Since 2006 school achievement of German students has been measured on a regular basis within the so-called national educational monitoring. The most recent results show considerable differences between the states. At first glance, students in the eastern and southern states perform well while students in the city-states show poor results. This paper argues that these differences cannot be attributed to state-specific school policies. Rather, a large portion of the variance between the states can be explained by social and ethnical differences. As a consequence, not only educational policy but also social and integration policies have to be reviewed in order to get a better understanding of the differences in school achievement among the German states.     

Konjunktur- und Strukturkomponenten der Länderhaushalte

Deutschland hat im August 2009 eine Schuldenregel im Grundgesetz verankert. Die Bundesl?nder müssen bis 2020 ihre Ausgaben grunds?tzlich ohne Kredite fi nanzieren. Konjunkturbedingte Defi zite sind weiterhin m?glich, die in konjunkturell guten Zeiten ausgeglichen werden müssen. Das RWI hat ein Verfahren entwickelt, wie die Konjunktur- und Strukturkomponenten der Landeshaushalte berechnet werden sollten.     

Pensionsfonds der Länder und Schuldenbremse

Germany’s federal states employ more than a million civil servants, whose future pension claims are by no means financially secured. This will cause a considerable additional budgetary burden in the coming decades. The pressure thus created to reduce expenditure can be alleviated by setting up a pension fund. However, this requires that the capital market yield must exceed the annual adjustment rate of the civil servants’ remuneration. The contributions of the federal states to such a fund should ideally be financed from budgetary savings. If the necessary rules are complied with, future budgets can also be relieved, provided the contributions to these funds are financed — wholly or partly — by loans.     

Neue Informations- und Kommunikationstechnik: L?sung für den Arbeitsmarkt der Zukunft?

Recent technological advances have prompted both utopian and dystopian visions of the transformation of work. The design of humane work environments requires not only a thorough understanding of technological affordances but also ?? critically ?? of work practices and their development. Many workers use advanced communication technologies on the job. It is assumed that this may foster economic productivity and growth, but there may also be negative effects, i.e. problems due to information overfl ow, diversion of attention and blurred boundaries between professional life and family life. The Internet has become one of the most popular tools for job seekers and changed the way workers and firms are matched on the job market. There is evidence that job changers who found their new job through the Internet are better matched than those who found a new job through newspapers, friends or other channels. The Internet has the potential to improve the matching quality of the labour market.     

Ausgaben der Länder in zukunftsorientierten Aufgabenbereichen

In recent years, the German federal states (Länder) have increased their engagement in many policy areas at the centre of current public debate (e.g. public safety, education and infrastructure). However, this cannot be confirmed using official data from the statistical office, since the annual statistics of expenditure and revenue — the only data source with this task reference — is current only through 2011. The author has tried to close this gap using data for the core budgets of the Länder which the national agency has not yet published. The results show that the Länder are more involved than widely perceived in all three functions of government examined here.     

Lässt sich der deutsche Leistungsbilanzüberschuss mit vertretbarem Aufwand reduzieren?

Can an expansive fiscal policy help to reduce Germany’s current account surplus while simultaneously creating positive spillover effects for the eurozone? If yes, what amount of measures would be required in order to bring the current account surplus below the 6% of GDP threshold specified in the EU Commission’s macroeconomic imbalance procedure? An analysis based on a global macroeconometric model shows that fiscal policy measures could reduce Germany’s surplus. The positive spillovers for the eurozone would be relatively small, however, while a huge amount of fiscal stimuli would be required to reach the 6% threshold. In addition, there would be a lasting increase in Germany’s public debt.     

Bundesbeteiligung an den Kosten der Unterkunft als Sammelbecken der Kommunalentlastung?

Social benefits amount to one quarter of municipal expenditures in Germany. Since 2005 the federal government has supported local governments by participating in the cost of housing for the unemployed at a fixed share. Since its conception, the instrument has been employed also for general financial relief. In the article each case is historically portrayed. The current federal government has pledged to relieve the municipalities by an additional amount of 5 billion euros a year. A simple way for achieving this relief would be to increase the federal share of subsidised housing costs. Alternatives are therefore presented.     

Gefährden institutionelle Anleger den Wettbewerb?

The Monopolies Commission, which advises the German government in competition policy making, warns against potential anti competitive effects of indirect horizontal links between competitors via institutional investors. Through such common ownership, the competitive conduct between suppliers could be alleviated, because their (joint) institutional shareholders interest in the overall market return may outweigh their interest in the individual firms’ returns. Taking account of the ubiquity of such common ownership in European and global markets as well as a non consideration in current competition law, the Monopolies Commission’s call for more research and vigilance appears to be appropriate.     

Austritt einzelner Länder aus der Währungsunion: ein Szenario

The exit of a member state from the eurozone is often depicted as a catastrophic event that would lead to uncontrollable havoc in the financial markets. In this contribution, an alternative scenario is developed based on a consensual understanding. It describes a multi-year transition period during which all member states’ payments were automatically realised on the basis of a basket consisting of the euro and the new currency. In the remaining eurozone countries, the relative weight of the euro would increase over time, while it would decrease in the exit state. The hope is that the possibility of a smooth exit path would increase the bargaining power to change the governance rules of the eurozone.