This paper demonstrates that the role of the personal income distribution for an economy's process of development through risky human capital accumulation critically depends on the shape of the saving function. Empirical evidence for the U.S. strongly suggests that the marginal propensity to...

Inheritance taxes may induce heirs to discontinue family firms. Because firm dissolution incurs transaction costs, a preferential tax treatment of transferred family businesses seems to be desirable from a macroeconomic viewpoint. The support of dynastic succession, however, entails also a cost...

This paper examines the role of the sociocultural background of students as measured by both religious denomination and political attitudes towards gender equality and science-related issues in their home environment for choosing STEM fields in university. Our empirical estimates are based on a...

The optimal mix of growth policies is determined within a comprehensive endogenous growth model. The analysis captures important elements of the tax-transfer system and accounts for transitional dynamics. Currently, for calculating corporate taxable income US firms are allowed to deduct...

Market imperfections may lead to underinvestment in dynamic general equilibrium models. An interesting but unexplored question is whether policy interventions which attenuate underinvestment gaps necessarily imply that consumption will initially decline. By employing a calibrated version of a...

This paper develops a two-sector R&D-based growth model with congestion effects from increasing urban population density. We show that endogenous technological progress causes structural change if there are positive productivity spillovers from the modern to the traditional sector and Engel’s...

Die bisherigen Daten scheinen auf eine lediglich begrenzte Einkommenskonvergenz zwischen Ost- und Westdeutschland anstatt auf eine Angleichung in absehbarer Zeit hinzudeuten. In diesem Beitrag konzentrieren sich die Autoren auf die Frage, ob in Deutschland zukünftig vollständige Konvergenz der...