(Gender-differentiated) Effects of Changes in Personal Income Taxation

Intereconomics - One of the most important areas of taxation is the personal income tax, which may have a gender-differentiated effect on work incentives and infl uence the distribution of paid and...     

Die Kapital-und Arbeitsintensität des österreichischen Außenhandels 1964

Summary Capital and labour intensity in Austria's foreign trade is examined on the basis of the 1964 input-output table. Eight variants were calculated in which tourist industry, imported intermediate consumption, and extractive industries, as well as agriculture trade, and transport were variously included and excluded.Calculations are based on domestic capital and labour intensities, as is done in all similar studies. In 1964 capital and labour intensity in Austria's foreign trade was neutral. The inclusion of tourism and of extractive industries, agriculture et al. results in a higher relative capital intensity in Austrian exports. It follows from the calculations that the capital intensity of imports was definitely not higher than that of exports; a certain proponderance of higher imports was identified in the case of human capital.     

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环保：是责任也是商机

我们生存在怎样的环境中？ 《沪港经济》记者：环境问题正成为国际社会共同关注的一个话题。与稳步发展的世界经济成正比的,是日益恶化的环境现状。作为一个日渐崛起的发展中大国,中国目前的环境状况是怎样的？而作为长三角都市圈龙头的上海,环境情况又是怎样？     

The Political Economy of State-Owned Lotteries

An incomplete contracts approach is applied to analyse the lottery industry. It is argued that lottery services are more efficiently provided by private enterprises than by public enterprises, even if the addictive potential of lotteries is taken into account and government is assumed to be benevolent. However, in most countries, state-owned enterprises provide lottery services. In Germany, the 16 states each own a monopoly lottery-providing enterprise. This apparent puzzle is resolved by dropping the assumption that members of government are perfectly benevolent. The narrow self-interest of members of the state governments and other influential stakeholders in Germany helps to explain the persistence of the current structure of the lottery industry.     

Loan managers’ trust and credit access for SMEs

Research on relationship lending pays only marginal attention to the role of loan managers’ trust in the managers of SMEs. Trust literature suggests that trust reduces agency costs. Thus, trust is expected to be positively related to the amount of short-term credit granted and negatively related to SMEs’ risk of being credit constrained. Results from six banks characterised by a German culture and three banks characterised by an Italian culture suggest that this is indeed the case: SMEs that enjoy a high level of trust from loan managers obtain more credit and are less credit constrained.     

Lotto nothing? The budgetary impact of state lotteries

Lottery revenues are often touted as an independent revenue source for states. Using 32 years of state financial data, the fallacy of such thinking is demonstrated. Being the first to control for the self-selection of being a lottery state, it is found that overall tax revenues decline with increased lottery sales. Moreover, it is discovered that this decline is driven by a decrease in revenues from general sales and excise taxes, which is only partially offset by increases in income tax receipts. Such findings are attributed to a combination of behavioural and political responses following the lottery's implementation.     

Eine reformierte Finanzverfassung muss für künftige Aufgaben gewappnet sein

Negotiations between the federal level and the Länder to reform the German fiscal equalisation system have begun. Major laws concerning the support of the East German Länder and the system of fiscal equalisation in general have to be replaced by 2020. However, instead of debating the design of the future fiscal equalisation with an emphasis on attaining the constitutionally anchored goal of guaranteeing equivalent living standards throughout the country, the publicly discussed proposals focus too narrowly on incremental changes. They fail to take account of future and current social and economic challenges such as demographic change and regional disparities.     

Assessing the impact of communication costs on international trade

Communication costs are frequently cited as an important determinant of trade costs. We test this relationship by incorporating alternative measures of communication costs in a model of bilateral trade. We find that international variations in communication costs indeed have a significant influence on trade patterns. Furthermore, estimates using disaggregated data reveal that communication costs are more important for trade in differentiated products than for trade in homogenous products.