On the Effects of Redistribution on Growth and Entrepreneurial Risk-taking

This paper investigates the effects of redistributive taxation on occupational choice and growth. We discuss a two-sector economy in the spirit of Romer (1990). Agents engage in one of two alternative occupations: either self-employment in an intermediate goods sector characterized by monopolistic competition, or employment as an ordinary worker in this sector. Entrepreneurial profits are stochastic. The occupational choice under risk endogenizes the number of firms in the intermediate goods industry. While the presence of entrepreneurial risk results in a suboptimally low number of firms and depresses growth, nonlinear tax schemes can sometimes compensate negative effects by ex post providing social insurance.     

Potenziale zur Erhöhung des regionalen Markenkerns im Stromvertrieb am Beispiel der regionalen Grünstromkennzeichnung gemäß EEG 2017

The regional green power labeling according to the EEG 2017 represents an extension of the possibilities for labeling green electricity. In this paper we investigate the extent to which the implementation of regional green power products using the green power labeling regime under the EEG 2017 can help to strengthen the regional brand core of German power marketers, and which is the best alternative for raising the regional brand core of these firms. To this end, the different options for green power marketing with regional reference are discussed in detail, and it is elaborated which additional marketing models are enabled through the regional green power labeling. Furthermore, the criteria are identified with which the various green power labeling models with regional reference—with respect to their potential to raise the regional brand core—ought to be compared with each other. The results from our analysis show that the regional green power labeling based on EEG 2017 can be used to systematically upgrade the options for the marketing of regionally generated electricity already in place before the EEG 2017 entered into force.     

Genuine Savings Rates in Developing Countries

Augmented measures of savings and wealth in the national accountsare critical to conceptualizing and achieving sustainable development.After developing the theory of genuine savings—traditionalnet savings less the value of resource depletion and environmentaldegradation plus the value of investment in human capital—thisarticle presents empirical estimates for developing countries.These calculations account for resource depletion and carbondioxide emissions, using consistent time series data for 1970–93.The empirical evidence shows that levels of genuine savingsare negative in a wide range of countries, particularly in Sub-SaharanAfrica, and that these countries are being progressively impoverished.Increasing the coverage of natural resources and pollutantsin our calculations would reduce the estimated levels of genuinesavings overall. The use of genuine savings measures suggestsa series of policy questions that are key to sustaining development.These are also explored, specifically the extent to which monetaryand fiscal policies, exports of exhaustible resources, strongerresource policies, and pollution abatement measures boost genuinesavings rates. For policymakers, linking sustainable developmentto genuine savings rates means that there are many possibleinterventions to increase sustainability, from the macroeconomicto the purely environmental.     

Tax Coordination and Unemployment

This paper analyses the implications of unemployment for fiscal competition and tax coordination among small open economies. Unemployment is modeled as resulting from wage bargaining. The analysis focuses on the effect of labour and capital tax coordination on welfare. We show that, while coordinated capital and labour tax increases unambiguously raise welfare if labour markets are competitive, different results emerge if labour markets are unionised. It turns out that coordinated capital and labour tax increases may reduce welfare. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Zur Relevanz des Controllability-Prinzips für die Unternehmenspraxis

Das Controllability-Prinzip fordert, Akteure nur für das verantwortlich zu machen, was diese auch beeinflussen k?nnen. In empirischen Studien wird jedoch berichtet, dass Unternehmen h?ufig gegen dieses Postulat versto?en und dass somit das Postulat m?glicherweise für Unternehmen nicht relevant ist. Dabei rekurrieren die meisten Studien nicht direkt auf das Postulat, sondern auf davon abgeleitete Handlungsmaximen. Vor diesem Hintergrund konsolidiert der vorliegende Review von 29 empirischen Studien die vielf?ltigen und scheinbar widersprüchlichen Detailerkenntnisse zum Controllability-Prinzip. Es wird deutlich, dass der Versto? gegen eine der Handlungsmaximen nicht mit einem Versto? gegen das Controllability-Prinzip gleichgesetzt werden darf. Das Postulat k?nnte somit sehr wohl für Unternehmen relevant sein. Zum anderen konnte gezeigt werden, dass die Wahrnehmung von Beeinflussbarkeit, Verantwortung und damit die Einhaltung des Prinzips sowohl von individuellen Pers?nlichkeitsmerkmalen als auch von Eigenschaften des Unternehmens (des korporativen Akteurs) abh?ngig ist. Es wird damit auch deutlich, dass erst eine Studie, die sowohl individuelle Pers?nlichkeitsmerkmale als auch Eigenschaften des Unternehmens berücksichtigt, geeignet ist, Aussagen zur Relevanz des Controllability-Prinzips zu liefern.     

Experience Rating versus Employment Protection Laws in a Model where Firms Monitor Workers*

While layoff costs in the U.S. are mostly due to experience‐rated unemployment insurance, layoff costs in European labour markets are primarily a consequence of employment protection laws. In this paper we compare the effects of experience rating and employment protection laws on employment and welfare in a model where unemployment arises due to efficiency wage setting and where labour turnover is inefficiently high. We show that a revenue‐neutral introduction of experience rating reduces labour turnover and increases employment and welfare. The introduction of employment protection laws may also reduce labour turnover but employment declines.     

Patching up the Pact

The paper considers the implications for the EU accession candidates of Central and Eastern Europe of the fiscal‐financial constraints imposed by the Stability and Growth Pact and the Maastricht Treaty. Our findings apply also to those current EU members whose initial conditions (e.g., infrastructure and progress in state pension reform) or other structural characteristics (e.g., demographic structure, growth potential, Balassa‐Samuelson equilibrium real exchange rate appreciation) differ significantly from the EU average. We find the existing criteria to be seriously flawed and propose an alternative rule, the Permanent Balance Rule, based on a strong form of tax smoothing.     

Habit persistence and the long-run labor supply

Standard macroeconomic models possess the undesirable feature that people stop working in the long run. Assuming standard parameters, the neoclassical model predicts that 2% of annual productivity growth leads to a 99% decline in the labor supply after 624 years. Yet, this contradicts the fact that labor hours per capita are relatively stable, even over a long period of time. This paper shows how internal and external habit persistence each work to stabilize the long run labor supply, independent of key parameter choices.