Many OECD countries are raising the normal retirement age (NRA), thereby, making early retirement more costly. Whereas such reforms incentivize individuals to work longer, labor market frictions might partly undermine intended behavioral responses. Employing administrative data of West German men, I estimate a dynamic discrete choice model of work, unemployment and retirement allowing for labor market ...
Using a laboratory experiment, we present first evidence that social image concerns causally reduce the take-up of an individually beneficial transfer. Our design manipulates the informativeness of the take-up decision by varying whether transfer eligibility is based on ability or luck, and how the transfer is financed. We find that subjects avoid the inference both of being low-skilled (ability stigma) ...
Expanding public or publicly subsidized childcare has been a top social policy priority in many industrialized countries. It is supposed to increase fertility, promote children's development and enhance mothers' labor market attachment. In this paper, we analyze the causal effect of one of the largest expansions of subsidized childcare for children up to three years among industrialized countries on ...
We evaluate the labor market and distributional effects of an increase in the early retirement age (ERA) from 60 to 63 for women. We use a regression discontinuity design which exploits the immediate increase in the ERA between women born in 1951 and 1952. The analysis is based on the German micro census which includes about 370,000 households per year. We focus on heterogeneous labor market effects ...
We analyze the top tail of the wealth distribution in Germany, France, and Spain based on the first and second wave of the Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS). Since top wealth is likely to be underrepresented in household surveys, we integrate big fortunes from rich lists, estimate a Pareto distribution, and impute the missing rich. In addition to the Forbes list, we rely on national rich ...
Die „Erzbergerschen Steuer- und Finanzreformen“ 1919/20 haben das deutsche Steuer- und Finanzsystem nahezu vollständig umgestaltet, modernisiert und stark ausgebaut. Wesentliche Elemente dieser Reformen haben bis heute Bestand– die Grundstrukturen des Steuersystems und der Steuerrechtsordnung sowie der zentralistische kooperative Finanzföderalismus. Das NS-Regime konsolidierte die Reformen und erhöhte ...
Mr. Bach, to what extent could cutting the value-added tax rate relieve low- and middle-income earners? If you want to provide significant fiscal relief to lower and middle income groups, you should focus more on the valueadded tax and less on the income tax. The value-added tax puts the burden on consumption, and consumer spending accounts for a much higher proportion of lower incomes than higher ...