Survey data from the United States, West Germany and East Germany are analyzed to compare individual attitudes towards political redistribution in each country. In West Germany the "homo oeconomicus effect", the "social rivalry effect" and the "public values effect" simultaneously retain an...

Data from official statistics and tax laws are exploited to describe fifty years of income taxation in Germany, with a focus on its role as a fiscal and distributive tool. The temporal pattern that emerges from the data is one of a golden age of the German income tax, followed by a slow shift...

I discuss the theoretical and empirical underpinnings of recent and announced tax policy of the German government. In contrast to a popular view, I argue that German tax policy should focus less on growth and unemployment. Today, the central tasks of tax policy should be to stabilize fiscal...