Wie sollte das Steuersystem in Deutschland reformiert werden?

Some authors focus on the fact that Germany shows one of the highest tax burdens among the OECD countries. Based on their analysis, they suggest approaches to reduce the tax burden in particular for lower and medium incomes. These tax reliefs are possible, and would not compromise new public investment. But decreases in personal income tax rates mainly relieve higher income earners and are accompanied by high tax losses if the top tax rates are not increased. Alternatives are relief for social contributions or VAT. Other researchers do not look at the tax burden this way: as the income tax burden in Germany is not high from a historical perspective or by international standards, there is no case for massive tax cuts, as this would jeopardise the government’s ability to act and fail to correct past shifts of the tax burden at the expense of households with low incomes. Any tax cuts should be targeted at the bottom half of the income distribution without creating any revenue shortfalls. Instead, the government would be well advised to increase its efforts to overcome the public investment backlog and ensure a well functioning civil service. Furthermore, sustainability oriented tax reforms should focus on a shift of the tax burden from taxes on labour towards environmental and wealth based taxes.     

Negotiation for Cooperation in Logistics Networks: An Experimental Study

This paper investigates the negotiation problem in a supply chain in which a supplier can realize cost savings if she reaches an agreement with a retailer to use the retailers accurate market data for production planning. We study the participants behavior in an asymmetric and a symmetric information scenario and model the experimental study as a reverse ultimatum game. The main finding is that the revelation of information in the game leads to higher payoffs for both parties and to a higher welfare.     

Choosing strategic responses to address emerging environmental regulations: size,perceived influence and uncertainty

How companies respond to impending regulations is a significant aspect of corporate strategy. Regulations, especially environmental regulations, are expanding quickly and increasingly important to firm success. The threat of impending environmental regulation forces companies to choose levels of strategic responses on a continuum from passive to active. Using practitioner oriented research and existing theoretical models of corporate response, this study finds that the type of strategic response is negatively related to size, positively related to state uncertainty and negatively related to effect/response uncertainty. Based on existing literature and the results of this study, the paper suggests that simplifying the uncertainty construct could lead to more definitive findings in future research. The study results also suggest that a curvilinear relationship may exist between managerial perception of influence and level of strategic response. Most importantly, the findings could have a significant impact on firm decision making regarding environmental investments. For example, it is hoped that firms will be able to use the findings of this study to further understand and anticipate their competitors' decisions. Practitioners may also benefit from the conclusions on uncertainty in that they may be able to more cleanly parse the types of uncertainty immersed in impending environmental regulations. Finally, firms may be better able to understand decisions by their own managers and their competitors' managers in terms of their perceived influence over the regulatory process. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Bundesverfassungsgericht und Krisenpolitik der EZB — Stellungnahmen der Ökonomen

In June 2013, the Federal Constitutional Court in Germany held an expert hearing on the suitability of ECB measures, such as the purchase of government bonds, and their compatibility with existing EU and German legislation. The statements of five invited experts are documented here. The authors comment on the path from the agreement that has laid down the basic rules for the euro area to a crisis-driven approach that seems to have forgotten these rules. The ECB policy holds many risks - above all that of financing public budgets almost without limits - for the stability of monetary and fiscal governance in the euro area. On the other hand, ECB measures can also be interpreted as a necessary means to comply with the ultimate task of the ECB, the defence of price stability. Hence the ECB’s crisis measures do not represent any intention to intervene in fiscal or economic policy measures, and after the crisis the ECB can return to a narrower interpretation of the role of a central bank. It should not be forgotten that the ECB measures bear high risks for the countries in trouble as well as for those countries supporting them.     

Central bank independence,inflation and political instability in developing countries

We test whether political instability affects central bank independence in developing countries. Both a legal measure and the turnover tate of central bank governors are used as proxies for central bank independence and the frequency of government transfers is used to proxy political instability. Only the number of coups affects the turnover rate of central bank governors. We also find that both the turnover rate of central bank governors and political instability affect the rate of inflation.     

Tax Progression and Human Capital in Imperfect Labour Markets

Recent contributions to the theory of taxation argue that tax progression raises welfare and employment in the presence of labour market imperfections. This literature takes the endowment of workers with human capital as given. The present paper analyses the effects of tax progression in a model with endogenous human capital formation. We show that the effect of tax progression on human capital investment depends on the deductibility of the cost of human capital formation. With full deductibility, tax progression raises employment and welfare. With incomplete deductibility, in contrast, the effect of tax progression on employment and welfare may be negative.     

Steuerpolitik als Mittel des Protektionismus?

Globalisation and the further deepening of economic integration that it involves are called into question from several angles. Protectionist measures can be seen in many countries. This paper discusses the issue of protectionist tax policy and links this debate to the current US tax reform.     

Business Cycle Desynchronisation: Amplitude and Beta vs. Co-movement

A high degree of correlation among the business cycles of individual countries is usually seen as a key criterion for an optimum currency area. However, the elasticity with which countries react to the common cycle is equally important. A country with a non-unitary growth elasticity relative to the common area will experience cyclical divergences at the peak and trough of the common cycle. Despite being characterised by highly correlated business cycles, the euro area suffers from widely differing amplitudes.