In fiscally centralised countries with a unique country-wide income tax schedule, it is straightforward to quantify the degree of progressivity. In fiscally decentralised countries with varying local tax schedules, however, this is not the case. In these countries, the effective tax...

We revisit the question whether U.S. fiscal policy in the pre-Volcker period was active or passive. To determine the policy stance, we estimate a DSGE model with monetary and fiscal policy interactions employing a sequential Monte Carlo algorithm (SMC) for posterior evaluation. In contrast to...

This paper studies the effects of differences in worldviews on parents? attitudes towards their children. We use unique German survey data containing questions on worldviews, religion, parental behavior, and socioeconomic variables. Our empirical evidence suggests that people with stronger...

Germany like many other European countries subsidize commuting by granting the right to deduct commuting expenses from the income tax base. This regulation has often been changed and has regularly been under debate during the last decades. The pros (e.g. causing efficiency gains with respect to...

The study contributes in analytical description of spatial diffusion of fertility, in particular, influenced by labour movements of people between places of residence and work. It is assumed that the labour market has externality on the marriage market due to commuting, which, in turn, affects...

This paper investigates whether labor mobility varies with the degree of agglomeration and, if so, how the differences can be explained. The theoretical basis rests on the advantages agglomerations exhibit in providing a large pooled labor market, one of Marshall's famous three sources of...

In the light of new theoretical and empirical work on the Permanent Income Hypothesis we tackle earlier findings for German data, which reject its validity given a large fraction of liquidity constrained consumers. Starting from a standard short run approach we do not find evidence for excess...

We investigate for Germany the positive correlation between the corporate savings glut in the non-financial corporate sector and the current account surplus from a capital account perspective. By employing sign restrictions our findings suggest that mostly labor market, world demand and...

This paper analyses whether the severe demographic change in Germany causes its high current account surpluses. An ageing population both increases the supply and lowers demand of capital in an economy. Due to a longer life span individuals save more. Fewer workers reduce the optimal capital...

This paper provides a new perspective on the exchange rate disconnect puzzle by referring to the expectations building mechanism in foreign exchange markets. Therefore, we analyze the role of expectations regarding macroeconomic fundamentals for expected exchange rate changes. In doing so, we...