Employing a two-period model with an environmental externality, this paper investigates the relation between emission taxation and the optimal level of public debt. The central insight is that the effect of emission taxation on optimal borrowing is ambiguous and may lead to lower or higher...

If an individual's health costs are U-shaped in weight with a minimum at some healthy level and if the individual has both self-control problems and rational motives for over- or underweight, the optimal paternalistic tax on calorie intake mitigates the individual's weight problem (intensive...

This paper develops a theoretical explanation why it may be optimal for higher-level governments to pay categorical block grants or closed-ended matching grants to local governments. We consider a federation with two types of local governments which differ in the cost of providing public goods....

Employing a two-period model with an environmental externality, this paper investigates the relation between emission taxation and the optimal level of public debt. The central insight is that the effect of emission taxation on optimal borrowing is ambiguous and may lead to lower or higher...

This paper stresses the special role of multinational headquarters in corporate profit shifting strategies. Using a large panel of European firms, we show that multinational enterprises (MNEs) are reluctant to shift profits away from their headquarters even if these are located in high-tax...

This paper examines the impact of tax incentives on corporate research and development (R&D) activity. R&D tax incentives are commonly provided as special tax allowances or tax credits. In recent years, several countries also reduced their income tax rates on R&D output with the purpose to...

This paper explores withholding-tax non-compliance in the context of dividend taxation. It focuses on a specific type of stock-market transactions around ex-dividend dates, so-called “cum-ex” trades, which caused considerable revenue losses due to illegitimate tax refunds in Germany and...