Imagine a married couple without children who are faced with the following situation. They are highly indebted from living beyond their means for many years; their home is freshly painted but run down on the…
The fact that politicians put forth populist and economically irrational proposals just prior to elections to garner a few extra votes is apparently an evil we must learn to live with. The most recent example…
In 2009 German policymakers ratified a constitutional amendment to limit new debt creation. The "debt brake" provisions that were adopted stipulate that all German states must have balanced budgets by 2020. The…
The taxation of multinational companies is not a topic suited for soapbox platitudes. It is simply too complex. Yet politicians continue to make it a subject of public debate. The governments of France,…
One of the issues that will figure prominently in the upcoming German parliamentary election is whether to increase taxes on wealth. For the most part, Germany currently taxes wealth by means of an inheritance…
Last year, it was quite fashionable to compare the ECB’s monetary policy to the Mephistophelean discovery of endlessly reproducible paper money in Faust. But current public opinion in the eurozone would seem to…
My final column written as ZEW's President before resiging from office has to do with Europe. Not only to pay tribute to the "E" in ZEW, but primarily because I am worried about Europe. We should not let things…
"Though this be madness, yet there is method in it." The efforts on the part of some governments in the eurozone to set up a functional European banking union by the beginning of 2013 might certainly remind us…
Since the middle of the last decade the situation on the German labour market has made a significant change for the better. The number of people in employment increased by 2.7 million between 2005 and 2012.…
As the European debt crisis grinds on, some countries, especially Italy and Spain, have complained that despite having initiated reforms they must pay "unreasonably" high interest rates to finance their…
