Suchergebnisse

This paper reviews recent developments in the theory of optimal income taxation and draws two broad conclusions with respect to the Hungarian personal income tax system. The first conclusion is that the optimal top marginal tax rate is likely to be higher, perhaps substantially, than the actual rate. The second conclusion is that the optimal tax burden of earnings near the minimum wage is likely to be lower than the actual tax burden. It is discussed how these results depend on the parameters describing labor-supply behavior, the income distribution, and the redistributive preferences of society.

The paper analyzes a political accountability game with an electorate of 'partisan' and 'independent' voters. It is shown that politicians have a strategic incentive to engage in 'divisive politics', that is, to force some independent voters to take sides, even if the direct electoral benefits are higher for their opponents than for themselves. By polarizing the electorate, the incumbent politician weakens the ability of independent voters to make him accountable for his policies in the common interest. Moreover, the interests of the incumbent and the opposition are aligned: the opposition also benefits from divisive politics because, in equilibrium, its election probability increases.

The paper introduces the possibility of coalition government into the theoretical study of political accountability and analyzes the accountability of coalitions as a problem of team production. It is shown that coalition governments can be held accountable in the presence of an electoral alternative. Accountability becomes problematic if it is certain that at least one of the coalition parties stays in power after the elections. Such a coalition (sometimes called a 'unity government') cannot be given appropriate collective incentives. To incentivize government performance, voters make one coalition party responsible for the outcome. This, however, makes the other coalition party interested in sabotage. The paper analyzes the resulting conflict and characterizes optimal voter strategy. ; In dieser Arbeit wird die theoretische Analyse der politischen Verantwortlichkeit auf die Situation einer Koalitionsregierung angewandt. Reduziert auf den vertragstheoretischen Kern des Problems stellen Koalitionsregierungen ein 'Teamprodukt' für den Wähler als Prinzipal her, wobei der 'Vertrag' zwischen Wählern und Koalitionsregierung sehr spezifisch und jedenfalls unvollständig ist. Es wird gezeigt, dass die Disziplinierbarkeit einer Koalition unproblematisch ist, wenn eine wahre Wahlalternative vorhanden ist. Die Disziplinierbarkeit (also die politische Verantwortlichkeit) wird problematisch in einer Situation, in der sich eine Koalition verschiedener Parteien ergibt, zu der es keine echte mehrheitsfähige Alternative gibt, und die als 'Große Koalition' bezeichnet werden soll. Die Besonderheit der Großen Koalition ist, dass mindestens eine der beteiligten Parteien mit Sicherheit nach den nächsten Wahlen weiterregiert. Nur Teile der Regierung können abgewählt werden; die große Koalition als Einheit kann in dieser Situation von den Wählern nicht in toto 'belohnt' oder 'bestraft' werden. Die Arbeit beschreibt die beste Strategie des repräsentativen Wählers in einem stilisierten politischen System, in dem die 'Große Koalition' regiert. Es wird gezeigt, dass der Wähler den Regierungspolitikern nur dann Anreize setzen kann, wenn er eine der Regierungsparteien für die Regierungspolitik verantwortlich macht. Dies führt jedoch zu einem Konflikt zwischen den Regierungsparteien, weil es die jeweils andere Regierungspartei zu Sabotage animiert.

The essays of the book are contributions to the game theoretic analysis of the State. Two of the essays develop further the analysis of political accountability. Political accountability is the study of how the behavior of politicians is shaped by the prospect of reelections. The essays in this book enrich this field by introducing aspects of coalition government and ideology. A third essay focuses on strategic behavior by states in repeated tax competition. The contribution of this essay is the reevaluation of a lower bound to admissible taxrates as a policy instrument to contain tax competition.

This paper analyses the factors explaining moderate wage growth in the EU in the post-crisis period. It investigates whether the historical relationship between wages and unemployment has weakened and whether composition effects moderated wage growth. The results suggest a negative answer to both questions. Wages in the EU have not stopped reacting to unemployment developments after the 2008 crisis. Wage growth was moderate because of low inflation, low trend productivity growth, and high unemployment. There are only a few Member States with a significant 'shortfall' in wage growth, including both low and high-unemployment countries. Migration, ageing and collective bargaining institutions appear to have mostly transitory effects on wage growth. During the last decade, changes in the composition of the workforce had a small but positive impact on wage growth in most of the EU, especially due to increasing average age and education level. In some Member States such as Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and Portugal, composition effects were a main driver of wage growth.