Volume 60, Issue 1

From 2010 on, a new tax law („Bürgerentlastungsgesetz“), which allows for more generous deductions, lowers total revenue from income taxation by more than 9 billion Euros per year. In addition, this new law leads to extensive changes concerning the source taxation of wage income. The present paper explores these effects and shows that wage taxes increase for some tax payers, despite the fact that their final tax liability decreases. On the other hand, the new law reduces the wage tax of secondary wage earners and thereby helps to diminish the negative work incentives associated with the German income tax system. Zusammenfassung Durch die Ausweitung der Abzugsfähigkeit von Kranken- und Pflegeversicherungsbeiträgen im Rahmen des Bürgerentlastungsgesetzes werden die Steuerpflichtigen ab 2010 jährlich um mehr als 9 Mrd. Euro entlastet. Damit einher gehen weitreichende Änderungen in der Lohnsteuer. Ziel dieses Beitrags ist es, die Wirkungen des Bürgerentlastungsgesetzes auf die Lohnsteuer anhand von Einzelfallberechnungen zu quantifizieren. Es wird gezeigt, dass es für einzelne Steuerpflichtige paradoxerweise zu Mehrbelastungen bei der Lohnsteuer kommt, während vor allem Zweitverdiener vom Bürgerentlastungsgesetz profitieren. Die Entlastungswirkung bei den Zweitverdienern könnte die bisher, aufgrund ihrer relativ hohen Lohnsteuerbelastung, bestehenden negativen Erwerbsanreize verringern. Darüberhinaus wird untersucht, inwieweit sich Ehepaare bei ihrer Lohnsteuerklassenwahl an die veränderte Lohnsteuerberechnung anpassen werden.

Immigration has a twofold impact on the sustainability of German fiscal policy. First, due to its positive impact on population size the fiscal burden spreads more shoulders i. e. the burden per capita declines (demographic effect). Second, the socioeconomic differences across natives and immigrants imply a structural effect, whose sign cannot be determined a priori. Based on the method of Generational Accounting the present paper finds that the overall impact of immigration on the sustainability of Germany’s fiscal policy is positive. This over all positive impact stems from the demographic effect, which outweighs the negative structural effect of immigration. Regarding the design of migration policies we find that considerable gains in sustainability may be reaped by attracting a larger share of high-skilled immigrants, while the positive impact of present immigration may turn negative if the integration of especially the second and third generation of immigrants into society fails.

Europe’s current energy strategy focuses on a functioning internal energy market, security of supply, energy efficiency and the development and deployment of renewable energy technologies. In this article, we discuss selected European energy policy actions from an economic perspective. We find that several activities seem economically reasonable in general. This assessment depends however on a cost efficient and incentive compatible implementation. Also, the current equilibrium of national sovereignty and European coordination does not seems to be stable in the long run if the European Union sticks to its challenging transformation targets. Instead, a further deepening of coordination is necessary, ending in a true convergence of European energy policy. Kurzzusammenfassung Die aktuelle Energiestrategie von Europäischer Kommission und Europäischem Rat hat die Sicherstellung des Funktionierens des Energiemarktes, die Gewährleistung der Energieversorgungssicherheit in der Union, die Förderung der Energieeffizienz und von Energieeinsparungen sowie Entwicklung neuer und erneuerbarer Energiequellen zum Ziel. Dieser Artikel betrachtet einige wichtige der aus den energiepolitischen Zielen abgeleiteten politischen Maßnahmen und diskutiert ausgewählte Aspekte der Europäischen Energiepolitik aus einer ökonomischen Perspektive. Dabei wird deutlich, dass die Maßnahmen zwar grundsätzlich ökonomisch sinnvoll erscheinen. Diese Bewertung gilt allerdings unter dem Vorbehalt kosteneffizienter und anreizkompatibler Umsetzung. Zudem zeigt die Diskussion, dass das bisherige Gleichgewicht zwischen nationaler Souveränität und europäischer Koordination im Bereich der Energiepolitik instabil ist, wenn die Europäische Union an ihren anspruchsvollen Transformationszielen festhält. Es bedarf einer weiteren Vertiefung der Koordinationsmechanismen bis hin zu einer Konvergenz der Energiepolitik.

The increasing share of renewables in generation leads to a structural change in electricity markets. As the utilization of conventional generators decreases in the short run, fixed costs of those power plants have to be recovered through high price spikes in times of scarce capacities. Moreover, for the longer run, given the technological peculiarities of power supply, the price spikes may not be strong enough to induce adequate capacity investments to ensure an efficient level of supply security. A solution may be to complement the energy-only markets by capacity markets. The latter provide revenues not only for the electricity actually sold but also for available capacity in order to reduce the utilisation risk, in particular for peak load plants that may be dispatched only for a small fraction of the time. Such an approach requires substantial reform of market design though.

A Europeanisation of energy policies is desirable because the three main objectives of energy policy (climate protection, security of supply and competitiveness) have cross-border impacts. Hence, it is good that the European Union has been granted a competence for energy policy in the article 194 of the Lisbon treaty. In addition, it is good that the European Commission has published its long-term strategy to stabilize expectations which is important for infrastructure investment. It is regrettable though that price signals, competition and market principles only play a minor role for the Commission while rather doubtful objectives such as fostering energy efficiency and promoting renewable dominate the agenda. The Commission’s strategy is mainly characterized by bureaucratic dirigisme, intense regulation, state planning and public subsidies. The road to a centrally planned energy industry is being walked down fast.

The article investigates the attempt by the German legislator to monopolize the national gambling market. Since January 2008, the new gambling treaty aims to organize the gambling market in a well-regulated manner as well as to reduce gambling addiction. An analysis of the market structure reveals that the treaty lacks a reasonable economic justification. Moreover, an empirical investigation of current market practices shows that the prohibition of online gambling has led to various monopoly avoidance strategies on the part of both the German gambling industry and gamblers themselves. Finally, the new regulation faces various legal challenges with respect to the EU Services Directive. The article proposes an alternative regulation, which may overcome the current economic and legal difficulties.

This paper focuses on the legal monopoly for sporting bets in Germany. We analyze the pricing behavior of the monopolist ODDSET and find that typical pricing inefficiencies on betting markets are reinforced under the monopoly. This result in conjunction with the decreasing tax revenue may motivate a liberalization of betting markets in Germany. We consider several tax designs for a liberalized market and favor gross earnings as tax base.