Gender, income, education and self-employment are robust predictors for individual support for redistribution in the OECD. In addition, considerations of social status, the fairness of the allocation mechanism, perceived moral worth of the poor and individual autonomy are important. The results...

Atypische Engelkurven-Verläufe zeigen, dass die in der Faktisch Anonymisierten Lohn- und Einkommensteuerstatistik 1998 (FAST) verzeichneten steuerrechtlich definierten Einkommensaggregate ein verzerrtes Bild vom Lebensstandard der Zensenten geben. Wir zeigen, dass f¨ur einen überwiegenden...

We analyse and compare individual beliefs about the effects of competition and their evolution over time in transition economies and experienced market economies. At the onset of transition, competition beliefs in transition countries are far more positive than in market economies. Over time,...

This paper challanges the view that weak work norms in generous welfare states makes them economically unsustainable. I develop a dynamic model of family-transmitted values that has a laissez-faire equilibrium with strong work norms coexisting with a social-insurance equilibrium with weak work...

I discuss the theoretical and empirical underpinnings of recent and announced tax policy of the German government. In contrast to a popular view, I argue that German tax policy should focus less on growth and unemployment. Today, the central tasks of tax policy should be to stabilize fiscal...

European economies are characterized by unionized labor markets and a pronounced governmental redistribution of income. This paper studies a model where those two features are combined with the possibility for individuals to make charitable contributions to the poor. The model exhibits...

Channeling human resources into the right occupations has historically been a key to economic prosperity. Occupational choices are not only driven by the material rewards associated with the various occupations, but also by the esteem that they confer. We propose a model of endogenous growth in...

This paper proposes a model that can be implemented to estimate the willingness to pay for distributive justice, defined as distribution according to desert. We derive a formula that allows one to recover the willingness to pay for distributive justice from fiscal data and the estimated...

We develop an economic theory of tolerance where endogenous lifestyles and exogenous traits are invested with symbolic value by people. Value systems are rationally chosen by parents for their children. In conjunction with actual behavior, value systems determine the esteem enjoyed by...

In 2001 the German government started to promote the development of private pensions by means of special saving subsidies and tax incentives (Riester-scheme). That policy especially targets households with relatively low incomes. Using data from the German Socio-economic Panel, we scrutinize the...