Volume 25, Issue 3

We estimate potential regional industrial effects in case of a threatening gas deficit. For Germany, the reduction leads to a potential decrease in industrial value added by 1.6 %. The heterogeneity across German states is remarkable, ranging from 2.2 % for Rhineland-Palatinate to 0.7 % for Hamburg. We emphasize the need for regional input-output tables to conduct economic analysis on a sub-national level, particularly when regional industrial structures are heterogeneous. The approximation with national figures can lead to results that differ both in magnitude and relative regional exposure. Our findings highlight that more accurate policy guidance can be achieved by improving the regional database.

Despite massive digitization efforts, the German economy has experienced a marked slowdown in its productivity growth. This paper empirically analyzes three prominent explanations for this development. First, using a novel quarterly utilization-adjusted total factor productivity measure for the German economy, we find that the slowdown in U.S. productivity growth since the mid-2000s had only a negligible impact on the German productivity trend. Second, the structural shift towards services in the German economy explains a sizeable share of the weaker aggregate productivity gains. This transformation process is associated with a strong labor market performance. And third, employing a novel identification procedure, we show that technological progress in the German information and communication technology (ICT) producing sector stimulates both, aggregate output and employment growth. Its effect on aggregate productivity is, however, small.

The German “Tax-Reform 2000” involved a strong reduction in the progressivity of labor income taxation. It led to a rise in overall labor income, but also increased income inequality. Utilizing data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP. 2016. Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), Data for Years 1984–2016, Version 33 ) for the years 1998–2007, we employ a general equilibrium framework à la Antràs et al. (Antràs, P., A. De Gortari, and O. Itskhoki. 2017. “Globalization, Inequality and Welfare.” Journal of International Economics 108: 387–412) characterized by heterogeneous individuals. The model imposes a constant rate of tax progressivity and allows for a theory-consistent decomposition of social welfare that highlights the equity-efficiency trade-off, namely into (i) the fundamental social welfare level that would arise in a Kaldor-Hicks economy with lump-sum transfers, (ii) a correction term that accounts for the social cost of inequality à la Atkinson (Atkinson, A. B. 1970. “On the Measurement of Inequality.” Journal of Economic Theory 2 (3): 244–63) or Sen (Sen, A. 1970. Collective Choice and Social Welfare . Harvard University Press), and (iii) a correction term for the social cost of distortionary taxation. Our estimations show that the German tax system can be well approximated by the imposed tax schedule and that the reform implied a fall in the degree of tax progressivity. Under the baseline calibration, the numerical analysis yields the following results: First, the main driver of growth in social welfare from 1998 to 2007 was fundamental social welfare. Second, the counterfactual analysis shows that the reform resulted in an annual average income growth of 0.62 % and an increase in income inequality of 0.32 %, indicating an only modest increase in social welfare of 0.07 %. Third, the actual tax progression converged to its social welfare maximizing level.