Tax fraud is a serious problem for fiscal authorities worldwide, not only in countries regarded as “hightax”like Germany. Besides long-term tax reforms, tax amnesties are used to bring back taxableamounts into the legal sector. The German tax amnesty of 2004/2005 was one of the last examples...

SMEs play a crucial role for European economies. The numbers show the high importance ofSMEs for national economies. Accordingly, it is no surprise that the regulatory frameworkSMEs are imbedded in is the subject of an important political discussion. In the discussion itis frequently mentioned...

In May 2004 the CFO Forum harmonized the various efforts of reporting the embedded valueof life insurance companies by issuing the European Embedded Value (EEV) Principles.In this working paper a methodology is proposed to derive a maximum lending amountfrom EEV figures without much additional...

This paper studies the effects that heterogeneous multiple bank financing hason a firm’s risk- and information-policy, particularly with respect to credit rene-gotiation efficiency. We find that a significant, yet limited, degree of relationshiplending enables firms with high asset specificity...

With the development of new internet technologies new security problems arise. Thus, it isimportant to consider security aspects during the complete development process of a web application.Every participant of such a process should have the appropriate knowledge. Classicallearning methods are...

In many analyses of the Chinese so-called economic miracle, cultural factors loom large. Thispaper offers a brief overview of recent economic approaches to culture and puts these into ananalytical framework that highlights the dynamic and creative aspects of culture. I argue thatChina is a model...

Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) have become active investors on the financial markets. Thisworking paper meets the increasing thirst for information on the investment activities of SovereignWealth Funds, their legal environment and the implications on German stock listedcorporations. Thus, this...

This work describes the legal structuring of a mortgage covered bond in accordance withthe regulations of paragraphs 791 cont. and 1184 cont. German Civil Code (BürgerlichesGesetzbuch). The work shows how to structure the share of common rights of the bondholders according to the regulations of...

Most previous research on efficiency in banking takes a regulatory perspective. In contrast,this paper investigates the empirical relation between efficiency and profitability in five largeeconomies of the European Union during the period 1998-2005 and discusses the results fromthe perspective...

In his comprehensive critique of current economic approaches to social capital, Durlauf(2002) recommends a stronger reliance on methods of experimental economics and socialpsychology. This paper surveys different notions of social capital and submits an alternativeconceptual approach based on...