The paper examines the incentives and distortions created by tax policy and administration structures that motivate individuals to undeclare or under-declare work in the new EU member countries. It analyses the tax level and the tax structure "mix" of tax instruments, the special taxation...

The paper discusses the current state of fiscal relations across levels of government in Belgium and how it has developed over time. As the current system of fiscal federalism is creating imbalances between the federal and the sub-federal governments (vertical imbalance), and between sub-federal...

Die deutsche Konjunktur hat sich deutlich abgekühlt. Das reale Bruttoinlandsprodukt dürfte im ersten Halbjahr 2001 nur noch um 1,3% über dem Vorjahr gelegen haben. Ursächlich dafür war zum einen die Verlangsamung der Weltkonjunktur und zum anderen der Kaufkraftentzug bei den privaten...

Welche Auswirkungen die Attentate vom 11. September 2001 auf die internationale Politik und die Weltwirtschaft haben werden, läßt sich heute noch nicht absehen. In den hier enthaltenen drei Beiträgen versucht das ifo Institut, erste Einschätzungen der Folgen dieser Terroranschläge zu geben....

Vom 15. bis 17. November 2002 veranstaltete die Akademie für politische Bildung Tutzing unter der Leitung von Prof. Dr. Peter Hampe, Akademie für politische Bildung, Tutzing, und Dr. Martin Held, Evangelische Akademie Tutzing, eine Konferenz zu dem Thema "Weltwirtschaftliche Folgen des...

Enhancing growth through more innovation has become a priority for Austrian policy makers in line with European policies as laid down in the Lisbon Agenda. This paper discusses Austria’s innovation performance, its innovation policies, and general framework conditions for innovation and...

France belongs to the group of OECD countries with relatively high tax levels. In recent years French governments have been increasingly aware that the tax system may have negative effects on growth and employment and some reforms have been introduced to reduce tax distortions. There has,...

Portugal’s fiscal policy has failed to durably reduce the deficit below the Stability and Growth Pact threshold of 3% of GDP and was submitted to the excessive deficit procedure of the EU Commission for a second time in 2005. The paper describes fiscal developments in Portugal over the past...

The paper examines the effects of demographic changes on government budgets and national savings. Most OECD countries will experience a rapid ageing of the population in the future and this development will put public pensions, health care systems and government budgets in general under...