Our study is based on the traditional Becker-Ehrlich deterrence model, but we analyse the model in the face of currently discussed factors of crime like demographic changes, youth-unemployment and income inequality. We use a panel of the German Laender (states) that allows us to exploit...

We analyze the potential influence of a number of factors on the distribution of equivalized net incomes in Germany over the period 2005/2006 to 2010/11. While income inequality considerably increased in the years before 2005/2006, this trend was stopped after 2005/2006. Among many other...

This paper investigates the effect of shifting taxes from labor income to consumption on labor supply and the distribution of income in Germany. We simulate stepwise increases in the value-added tax (VAT) rate, which are compensated by revenue-neutral reductions in income-related taxes. We...

This study revisits the increase in wage inequality in Germany. Accounting for changes in various sets of observables, composition changes explain a large part of the increase in wage inequality among full-time workers. The composition effects are larger for females than for males, and...

We argue that in labor markets with central wage bargaining wage flexibility varies systematically across the wage distribution: local wage flexibility is more relevant for the upper part of the wage distribution, and flexibility of wages negotiated under central wage bargaining affects the...

We use a stylized model to show that, if transfers to the poor are founded on a security argument, there is a negative trade-o¤ between law enforcement expenditures and criminality. In contrast, if transfers are based on altruism, the correlation between the same variables may appear positive....

This paper presents estimates of the unification bonus for East Germans over the period 1991 to 1998. The unification bonus is defined as the discounted value of the difference between a person's actual income and his or her counterfactual real income stream forecast for a hypothetical...

This paper compares trends in wage inequality in the U.S. and Germany using an approach developed by MaCurdy and Mroz (1995) to separate age, time, and cohort effects. Between 1979 and 2004, wage inequality increased strongly in both the U.S. and Germany but there were various country specific...

This paper investigates the evolution of wages and the recent tendency to rising wage inequality in Germany, based on the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) for 1984 to 2004. Between 1984 and 1994 the wage distribution was fairly stable. Wage inequality started to increase around 1994 in...

Less than half of the people with migration background living in Germany possess foreign citizenship. Hence, using citizenship to analyze economic issues of immigration may be problematic for two reasons. On the one hand, a quite substantial share of persons with migration background is...