Search

Medium-Term Economic Development: Stable Growth and Big Surpluses in Public Budgets

The German economy will experience significantly stronger growth up to 2017 than it has in the past five years. Economic growth will increasingly be driven by domestic demand, and job creation will continue. In the medium term, there will be increasing surpluses in public budgets; in 2017, these will reach almost 28 billion euros. At the beginning of the projection period - as in recent years ...

Informational Opacity and Honest Certification

This paper studies the interaction of information disclosure and reputational concerns in certification markets. We argue that by revealing less precise information a certifier reduces the threat of capture. Opaque disclosure rules may reduce profits but also constrain feasible bribes. For large discount factors a certifier is unconstrained in the choice of a disclosure rule and full disclosure maximizes ...

Scapegoating Germany is easy but wrong

EU governments need to convince their citizens that reforms are necessary, says Marcel Fratzscher in: Financial Times (10th of April 2013) The most terrifying words in the English language, according to Ronald Reagan, are: “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” Today, for some Europeans, they are: “I’m from the EU and I’m here to bail you out.” ...

Effective Taxation of Top Incomes in Germany

We exploit a dataset that includes the individual tax returns of all taxpayers in the top percentile of the income distributionin Germany to pin down the effective income taxation of households with very high incomes. Taking tax base erosion intoaccount, we find that the top percentile of the income distribution pays an effective average tax rate of 30.5% and contributes more than a quarter of total ...

Do mothers adjust their labor supply in response to child-raising benefits in the pension system?

Social Insurance and the Marriage Market

Abstract: When social insurance eligibility depends on marital status, this is a government intervention into the marriage market. I formally show that such intervention influences three behavioral margins in the marriage market, and test the theory exploiting a Swedish reform of survivors insurance - an annuity paid to widows, but not divorcees, upon the husband's death. First, I analyze bunching...

Cognitive and Non-cognitive Skill Formation and Labor Market Outcomes: Habilitationsschrift

Sustainable Financial Markets: Financial Transaction Tax and High Capital Buffers Indispensable

By: Dorothea Schäfer in: DIW Economic Bulletin 04/2013. The sustainability of the financial markets is a requirement that has only appeared on the economic policy agenda very recently, whereas a stable financial system has been a declared goal for decades. The relationship between sustainability and stability is, however, still unclear. The two terms are often used synonymously but stability ...

Innovation Policy for SMEs Proves Successful

By: Heike Belitz, Alexander Eickelpasch, Anna Lejpras in: DIW Economic Bulletin 04/2013. The innovation policy of the German government and Länder provides small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with a wide range of programs to promote their research and development (R&D) and focuses, in particular, on the transfer of knowledge. In recent years, the programs have been streamlined and ...

Members of German Federal Parliament More Risk-Loving Than General Population

By: Moritz Heß, Christian von Scheve, Jürgen Schupp, Gert G. Wagner in: DIW Economic Bulletin 04/2013. Politics and business often involve making risky or dangerous decisions whose outcomes can be predicted only with difficulty, if at all. As attitudes toward risks and dangers vary between individuals, it is reasonable that people with different attitudes are active in areas requiring ...