This dissertation focuses on three dimensions of inequality: income, (just) taxation, and well-being. All chapters focus on a similar time horizon (2000 to 2015) and essentially on the same geographical area, Germany. The chapters are organized in four parts, each examining a specific research question and based on evidence from microdata - the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). The analysis of chapter ...
Based on a dynamic life cycle model, this study analyzes health-related risks of consumption and old-age poverty. The model allows for health effects on employment risks, on productivity, on longevity, the correlation between health risks, productivity and preferences, and the financial incentives of the German public insurance schemes. The estimation uses data on male employees and an extended expectation-maximization ...
DIW Berlin has a long tradition of conducting research beyond core economic topics and covering important issues regarding Germany’s society and its social structures. Here you can find the institute’s English-language publications covering a wide range of topics such as the country’s education system, social mobility, and gender issues.
In recent years, the global community has promoted several initiatives aimed at breaking bank secrecy in tax havens. Such treaties for the exchange of information among tax offices can be effective. A treaty between country A and tax haven B reduces deposits from A in banks of B by approximately 30 percent. However, the analysis shows that tax evaders react to such treaties not by becoming honest taxpayers ...
In a systematic European comparison of taxes and duties on passenger cars, Germany is in the lower third – Taxes on passenger cars neither raise enough revenue nor provide sufficient incentives for less polluting passenger car traffic. Germany needs to reform its passenger car and fuel taxation and make a gradual increase in the diesel tax a priority. This is the conclusion reached by Uwe Kunert, ...
In important areas such as tax policy, education, and energy, the future grand coalition must be considerably more ambitious – The need for reform in Germany is not being addressed sufficiently Germany’s next government will most likely once again be a grand coalition. However, the results of the preliminary coalition talks between the Union parties and the SPD, which serve as a basis ...
This study evaluates the impact of fuel taxes on new car purchases, using exhaustive individual-level data of monthly new car registrations in France. We use information on the car holder to account for heterogeneous preferences across purchasers, and we identify demand parameters through the large oil price fluctuations of this period. We find that the short-term sensitivity of demand with respect ...