This paper revives the question of whether a temporary VAT change is an adequate instrument for crisis stabilization. In empirical assessments, we find that durable goods consumption fluctuates strongly over the business cycle and that VAT rate changes affect durable goods in particular....

This paper examines the dynamics of wealth and income inequality along the business cycle and assesses how they are related to fluctuations in the functional income distribution. In a panel estimation for OECD countries between 1970 and 2016 we find that on average income inequality - measured...

This paper evaluates the temporary VAT reduction introduced by the German government over the third and fourth quarter of 2020 as most controversial part of the COVID-19 stimulus package. Critics argue that VAT reductions are ineffective because of limited pass-through of temporary measures to...

While the first two pillars of the European Banking Union have been implemented, a European deposit insurance scheme (EDIS) is still not in place. To facilitate its introduction, recent proposals argue in favor of a reinsurance scheme. In this paper, we use a regime-switching open-economy DSGE...

The system of capital taxation consists of two instruments, namely a tax on profits and a depreciation allowance on investment. We will show in this paper that by acting on both instruments simultaneously it is possible to achieve both a growth and a fiscal net revenue target even in cases when...

A two-sector incomplete markets model with heterogeneous agents can be used to study the distributional effects of the COVID-19 lockdown. While negative aggregate welfare effects of the lockdown are unavoidable, the size of aggregate welfare effects as well as the distribution of the welfare...

Concerns about global warming and growing scarcity of fossile fuels require substantial changes in energy consumption patterns and energy systems, as targeted by many countries around the world. One key element to achieve such transformation is to increase energy efficiency of the housing stock....

This article analyses how the presence of a dominant group of voters within the electorate affects voter turnout. Theoretically, we argue that both the absolute size and the relative power of a dominant group influence voters' decision-making process. The former effect derives from increased...

Rising rents in German cities have led to an intense debate about the need for tighter rent controls in housing markets. In April 2015, the so-called rental brake was introduced, which imposes upper bounds for rents in new contracts, in order to immediately slow down the increase of rents in...

This paper studies market segmentation that arises from the introduction of a price ceiling in the market for rental housing. When part of the market faces rent control, theory predicts an increase of free-market rents, a consequence of misallocation of households to housing units. We study a...