Die Wirkungen der Hartz-IV-Reform von Arbeitslosen- und Sozialhilfe werden derzeit in Politik und Wissenschaft diskutiert. Ist es durch die Ausgestaltung des Sozialgesetzbuches II zu einer Kostenexplosion gekommen? Führte das Gesetz zu einem Lohnrutsch nach unten? Ist Hartz IV ein...

In this paper, we attempt to renew the interest in marginal employment subsidies. Such subsidies are paid only for a firm's additional employment exceeding some reference level and create larger employment stimuli at lower fiscal costs than general wage subsidies for all workers. If the hiring...

Workfare proposals concentrate on the work incentives for welfare recipients, thus focusing on the labor supply side. This paper analyzes the effects workfare has on labor demand when the labor market is unionized. As workfare reduces the number of recipients of public financial assistance, a...

This survey reviews the recent literature on the double-dividend hypothesis of environmental taxes and discusses some recent extensions of the standard model such as the distributional consequences and the importance of the non-separability assumption between consumption goods and environmental...

Many countries suffer from persistently high unemployment rates. The scope for labour market reforms is often limited to measures that hurt neither shareholders nor workers. This paper develops a policy proposal, which allows the government to recuce wage costs without changing the income...