On 3 June 2020, the German government announced a temporary value added tax (VAT) rate reduction. VAT rates were reduced on 1 July 2020 and went back to their previous level on 1 January 2021. We study the price effects of the temporary VAT rate reduction using a web-scraped data set covering...

On 1 July 2020, value added tax (VAT) rates were reduced in Germany to fight the economic consequences of the Corona pandemic. The VAT rate reduction is temporary as rates will return to their previous level on 1 January 2021. We study the effects of the temporary VAT rate cut on German...

On 3 June 2020, the German government announced a temporary value added tax (VAT) rate reduction. VAT rates were reduced on 1 July 2020 and went back to their previous level on 1 January 2021. We study the price effects of the temporary VAT rate reduction using a web-scraped data set covering...

The current system for the financing of the EU needs to be reformed. This paper puts forth a reform proposal with two important elements: first, the addition of an EU VAT share on receipts; and second, a shift in power from the European Council to the European Parliament with regard to the...

The current system for the financing of the EU needs to be reformed. This paper puts forth a reform proposal with two important elements: first, the addition of an EU VAT share on receipts; and second, a shift in power from the European Council to the European Parliament with regard to the...

In this paper we propose a reform of the EU financing system. The two most important elements of our proposal are i) to make the contribution of taxpayers to the EU budget more visible by showing an EU VAT share on receipts and ii) to increase the power of the European Parliament in the...

A widespread objection to the introduction of consumption tax systems claims that this would lead to high tax revenue losses. This paper investigates the revenue effects of a consumption tax reform in Germany. Our results suggest that the revenue losses would be surprisingly low. We find a...

Folklore has it that the comparatively low proportion of self-employed in Germany is in part due to a habit that might be termed 'stigmatisation of failure': taking a second chance to build one's own firm after failing as a self-employed is said to be much more difficult here than in other...

In a sharp break with past German research, some recent estimates have suggested that plants with work councils have 25 to 30 per cent higher productivity than their works-councilfree counterparts. Such findings can only serve to buttress the strong theoretical and policy interest in the German...

In a survey published in the British Journal of Industrial Relations, Frege (2002) evaluates research on the German works council from the perspective of several disciplines, including economics. Ultimately, she concludes that economic analysis of the works council has reached a ?dead end?. The...