1. Expertises // 2014

    Cost of Non-Europe report - Common unemployment insurance scheme for the euro area

    The Great Recession and the resulting European debt crisis revived a debate about deeper fiscal integration in the Eurozone. We discuss different alternatives how an unemployment insurance system for the euro…

  2. ZEW Discussion Paper No. 14-078 // 2014

    Sufficient Statistic or Not? The Elasticity of Taxable Income in the Presence of Deduction Possibilities

    The elasticity of taxable income (ETI) is often interpreted as a sufficient statistic to assess the welfare costs of taxation. Building on the conceptual framework of Chetty (2009), we show that this assertion…

  3. ZEW Discussion Paper No. 14-077 // 2014

    Intergenerational Transmission of Unemployment – Evidence for German Sons

    This paper studies the association between the unemployment experience of fathers and their sons. Based on German survey data that cover the last decades we find significant positive correlations. Using…

  4. ZEW Discussion Paper No. 14-076 // 2014

    Field of Study, Qualification Mismatch, and Wages: Does Sorting Matter?

    Graduates from Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) are usually found to have higher wages and a lower risk of overqualification. However, it is unclear whether we can interpret the effect of…

  5. ZEW Discussion Paper No. 14-075 // 2014

    Improving Voluntary Public Good Provision by a Non-Governmental, Endogenous Matching Mechanism: Experimental Evidence

    Social norms can help to foster cooperation and to overcome the free-rider problem in private provision of public goods. This paper focuses on the enforcement of social norms by a self-introduced punishment and…

  6. Non-Refereed Journal // 2014

    Flat-rate Tax Systems and their Effect on Labor Markets

    Despite their theoretical benefits, flat taxes have been tried only in a few formerly socialist countries

  7. ZEW Discussion Paper No. 14-073 // 2014

    Extending Taxation of Interest and Royalty Income at Source – an Option to Limit Base Erosion and Profit Shifting?

    This paper discusses tax policy measures to reduce corporate tax avoidance by extending taxation in the source country without imposing double taxation. We focus on four options: Bilaterally restricting…

  8. ZEW Discussion Paper No. 14-072 // 2014

    Invalid but Infringed? An Analysis of Germany’s Bifurcated Patent Litigation System

    We analyze the impact of the probabilistic nature of patents on the functioning of Germany’s bifurcated patent litigation system where infringement and validity of a patent are decided independently by different…

  9. ZEW Discussion Paper No. 14-071 // 2014

    Combining Technology and Work Organization: An Analysis of Complementarity between IT and Decentralization across Firms of Different Size

    This paper examines whether information technology (IT) and decentralized work organization are complementary only for large firms or also for smaller firms. Empirical evidence, which suggests complementarity…