The trend of increasing inequality in the distribution of income and wealth in most developed countries has led to calls for corrective tax increases for the rich and wealthy. Such calls are often confronted with the claim that higher taxes on top personal incomes, corporate income and wealth...

Looking back, the debt brake for the German federal government's budget seems a great success story: The targets for net borrowing were met with a wide margin each year, the budget was consolidated extremely fast since 2010 and the debt brake served as a role model for the Fiscal Compact at the...

Die Schuldenbremse des Bundes erscheint im Rückblick als große Erfolgsgeschichte: Ständige Übererfüllung der Vorgaben für die Nettokreditaufnahme, extrem rasche Konsolidierung seit 2010, Nachahmung durch den EU-Fiskalpakt auf europäischer Ebene. Doch der Schein trügt. - Die extrem rasche...

From 1999 to 2005 the former Red-Green government in Germany enacted a series of ambitious tax cuts that were supposed to boost the German Economy. The article argues that these tax cuts instead of boosting the economy involved major costs. The revenue losses induced substantial expenditures...