Introduction Germany currently finds itself in a difficult economic situation, one characterised not only by a long period of weak economic growth, but also by developments that, if the necessary adjustment processes are not accomplished, pose a threat to Germany's medium-term growth prospects....

Haushaltsstichproben wie die EVS spiegeln die Randbereiche der Verteilung nur unzureichend. Um die oberen Einkommensbereiche besser abzubilden, bietet sich eine Analyse der Einkommensteuerstatistik an, in der die "reichen" Haushalte bzw. Personen vollständig sind. Einkommenskonzept und...

We analyze the top tail of the wealth distribution in Germany, France, Spain, and Greece based on the Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS). Since top wealth is likely to be underrepresented in household surveys we integrate the big fortunes from rich lists, estimate a Pareto...

East German wages have been below the West German wage level since unification. Moreover, the East-West wage gap implied by the contractual wages specified in collective wage agreements is drifting ever further apart from the wage gap in terms of effective wages. This paper looks at the role of...

Turning unemployment into self-employment has become an increasingly important part of active labor market policies (ALMP) in many OECD countries. Germany is a good example where the spending on start-up subsidies for the unemployed accounted for nearly 17% of the total spending on ALMP in 2004....

In order to calculate the burden of a comprehensive and progressive income tax falling on a certain income source, an apportionment scheme for the entire tax burden has to be chosen. This raises the question of how to deal with losses, which is relevant for Germany in view of the heavy losses...

It is argued that the observed return rates on capital at firm-level have an upward bias if firms are producing with unobserved intangible capital. Using EUKLEED, a comprehensive firm level data base for Germany, this theoretical preposition is proved empirically. Furthermore, making unobserved...

Standard job search theory assumes that unemployed individuals have perfect information about the effect of their search effort on the job offer arrival rate. In this paper, we present an alternative model which assumes instead that each individual has a subjective belief about the impact of his...

When unemployed persons go into business, they often are characterized as necessity entrepreneurs, because push factors, namely their unemployment, likely prompted their decision. In contrast to this, business founders who have been previously employed represent opportunity entrepreneurs because...