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The financial crisis of 2007 and the following recession present a major challenge to macroeconomic theory. The same holds true for exceptionally low interest rates during the recent years and for the puzzle that super-expansive monetary policies failed to produce high inflation. Approaches that focus on steady states, rational expectations, and individuals planning over infinite horizons, are not suitable for analysing such abnormal situations. 'A Study in Monetary Macroeconomics' refines and improves mainstream approaches to resolve these puzzles and to contribute to a better understanding of monetary and fiscal policies. Using a rich institutional structure that includes features such as credit money, external finance, borrowing constraints, net worth, real estate and commercial banks, this timely study reduces rationality requirements to cope with its complex setting. It starts with a simple baseline model, deriving results from mathematical reasoning and simulations whilst adhering to the method of dynamic general equilibrium (DGE) with optimizing agents and fully specified models. Highly topical, 'A Study in Monetary Macroeconomics' uses a unified theoretical framework to demonstrate that a DGE approach makes it possible to develop clean models that work outside steady states and are appropriate for answering macroeconomic questions of actual interest

The book offers a comprehensive treatment of tax theory and policy. It surveys the German tax system, portrays tax history, and describes principles of tax administration and the construction of schedules. Tax shifting, optimal taxation theory, and questions of tax justice are considered in depth. The book also contains a theory of business taxation and an elaborate treatment of international taxation

In an important decision, the German Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) rejected a claim of the state Berlin on federal support. Berlin had argued that it were effectively bankrupt. The article considers the ruling from an economic perspective.

This paper makes a fresh attempt at characterizing optimal commodity taxes. Under the usual assumptions, an extremely simple expression of second-best commodity taxes is derived, showing tax rates as functions of observable variables only, rather than as functions of unobservable variables such as compensated cross elasticities. The main formula is independent of special preferences, and independent of the number of commodities. It has a simple economic meaning and could be particularly useful for empirical research. Examples and remarks on the normalization problem are provided.

Dieses Buch bietet eine theoretische Analyse verschiedener Alterssicherungssysteme; ein Thema, das infolge der demographischen Entwicklung weltweit an Interesse gewinnt. Im Vordergrund steht ein Vergleich von Umlage- und Kapitaldeckungsverfahren. Die breit angelegte Untersuchung behandelt ebenso Fragen wie "staatliche versus private Alterssicherung". Im Rahmen eines "general equilibrium"-Ansatzes und unter Anstrebung größter Allgemeinheit (keine "steady state"-Annahmen) werden Probleme gelöst, die lange als unentscheidbar galten. So kann mit Hilfe einfacher mathematischer Techniken gezeigt werden, daß ein Umlageverfahren eine definitive Verringerung des Kapitalbestandes bewirkt. Als wichtig wird indes nicht die Höhe des Kapitalbestandes, sondern die Effizienz des Alterssicherungssystems angesehen. Dieses bisher kaum erörterte Problem wird in den Vordergrund gerückt, der Verfasser argumentiert, daß sich auf diese Weise verschiedene Dispute wie die "Feldstein-Kontroverse" auflösen und eindeutig entscheiden lassen