Documents Heinemann, Friedrich 7 results

"The current system for the financing of the EU needs to be reformed. This paper puts forth a reform proposal with two important elements: first, the addition of an EU VAT share on receipts; and second, a shift in power from the European Council to the European Parliament with regard to the determination of the structure of EU expenditures. The first element will make taxpayers' contributions to the EU more visible, thereby increasing their interest in the EU budget and fostering democratic accountability. The second element will shift spending priorities away from projects that generate visible advantages to individual member states and towards policies that benefit the EU as a whole."

"The concern that generous welfare state institutions may in the long-run undermine social norms which limit the disincentives of social security systems is as old as the welfare state itself. Already in the 1930s, Franklin D. Roosevelt warned of the ‘moral disintegration' effect of welfare dependency. This study assesses the empirical validity of this concern. Based on the results of four waves of the World Value Surveys the individual and country-specific determinants of benefit morale – defined as the reluctance to claim government benefits without legal entitlement – are analysed. The results support the empirical relevance of these worries: In the long-run an increase of government benefits and unemployment is associated with deteriorating welfare state ethics."

"Reforms, such as a higher pension age, are highly unpopular although they are a demographic necessity. Hence, a sound understanding of reform resistance is desirable. Preceding studies have explored numerous important drivers of pension reform acceptance. According to these insights, an individual's socio-economic characteristics like gender, income or age matter as does the degree of information on the extent of the system imbalances. So far, however, the literature has not looked into another potential source of reform resistance which is related to an individual's (dis-)utility from work. Thus, this contribution argues that intrinsic motivation must not be overlooked in a comprehensive analysis of pension reform preferences. Pension reforms impose or reduce restrictions on ageing citizens to offer their work at the labor market. Therefore, an individual's work motivation should have an impact on reform preferences. People with intrinsic work motivation will be less anxious about longer working years compared to people for whom work is a burden. To specify the theoretical link between work motivation and pension reform acceptance, we regard the formation of pension age preferences within the framework of an optimal job separation decision. In this framework, a higher pension age should be a relatively attractive reform option for intrinsically motivated workers compared to the reform alternatives of cutting pensions or increasing contributions. In the empirical part, this prediction is tested for data from the representative ALLBUS survey (German General Social Survey) of the German population. The results strongly confirm that (lacking) intrinsic work motivation is a robust determinant for individual (resistance and) support for a higher pension age. This key result has numerous implications, both for the intrinsic motivation literature and our understanding of reform processes. So far, intrinsic motivation has been recognized to be important for the efficiency of firms and organizations. Our findings point beyond that insight towards the formation of policy preferences and the adaptability of modern welfare states and societies. A lack of non-monetary incentives will contribute to the blockade of reforms which require more work effort. Hence, a society for which work is perceived as a nuisance will have much larger problems to adjust to the necessities of demographic change compared to a society with high work ethics."

"Setting minimum tax rates is a well discussed way of mitigating pressure from tax competition. This paper investigates which motives shape the support for a minimum corporate tax among politicians. We make use of a unique data base: a survey among members of the European parliament. Our results confirm that the politicians' ideology as well as individual characteristics such as educational background exert a major in uence. Moreover, several predictions regarding national interests are derived from various standard tax competition models. These hypotheses are partly supported by the data; in particular, different national preferences for social equality shape the support. A comparison with survey results from the German Bundestag reveals that German politicians on the national level do not show different preferences towards tax rate harmonization. "

"Resilienz einer Volkswirtschaft kann weder das Vermeiden von Krisen noch ein ängstliches Festhalten am Status quo meinen. Vielmehr beschreibt Resilienz in der Ökonomie die Fähigkeit, die gesellschaftlichen Ziele eines Wirtschaftssystems auf immer neuen Wegen zu erfüllen. Analog zur Psychologie geht es somit letztlich um die Bereitschaft und Fähigkeit zur Anpassung. Um Deutschlands Resilienz ist es im langjährigen internationalen Vergleich nur durchschnittlich bestellt, wir liegen hier auf einer Stufe mit Kanada und Italien."

Die COVID-19-Pandemie ist nicht nur eine humanitäre Krise, sondern auch ein einschneidendes ökonomisches Krisenereignis. Die ökonomischen und finanziellen Folgen sind derzeit nicht seriös abschätzbar und hängen entscheidend davon ab, inwieweit die gegenwärtig verfolgten Eindämmungsstrategien erfolgreich sind und wie lange und in welcher Weise das Herunterfahren des öffentlichen Lebens andauert. Nach allen bisherigen Abschätzungen (z.B. Dorn et al., 2020) ist die Erwartung gerechtfertigt, dass eine Rezession in der Größenordnung der globalen Finanzkrise von 2008/09 bereits unvermeidbar ist und auch eine deutlich tiefere Rezession mit einem zweistelligen Rückgang des BIP im Jahr 2020 in Deutschland und anderen betroffenen Industriestaaten heute noch nicht ausgeschlossen werden kann."