Shifting taxes from labor to consumption : more employment and more inequality

This paper investigates the effect of shifting taxes from labor income to consumption on labor supply and the distribution of income in Germany. We simulate stepwise increases in the value-added tax (VAT) rate, which are compensated by revenue-neutral reductions in income-related taxes. We differentiate between the personal income tax (PIT) and social security contributions (SSC). Based on a dual data base and a microsimulation model of household labor supply behavior, we find a regressive impact of such a tax shift in the short run. When accounting for labor supply adjustments, the adverse distributional impact persists for PIT reductions, while the overall effects on inequality and progressivity become lower when payroll taxes are reduced. This is partly due to increases in aggregate labor supply, resulting from higher work incentives

Venous Thromboembolism Within Professional American Sport Leagues.

Background: Numerous reports have described players in professional American sports leagues who have been sidelined with a deep vein thrombosis (DVT) or a pulmonary embolism (PE), but little is known about the clinical implications of these events in professional athletes. Purpose: To conduct a retrospective review of injury reports from the National Hockey League (NHL), Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Basketball Association (NBA), and the National Football League (NFL) to take a closer look at the incidence of DVT/PE, current treatment approaches, and estimated time to return to play in professional athletes. Study Design: Descriptive epidemiology study. Methods: An online search of all team injury and media reports of DVT/PE in NHL, MLB, NBA, and NFL players available for public record was conducted by use of Google, PubMed, and SPORTDiscus. Searches were conducted using the professional team name combined with blood clot, pulmonary embolism, and deep vein thrombosis. Results: A total of 55 venous thromboembolism (VTE) events were identified from 1999 through 2016 (NHL, n = 22; MLB, n = 16; NFL, n = 12; NBA, n = 5). Nineteen athletes were reported to have an upper extremity DVT, 15 had a lower extremity DVT, 15 had a PE, and 6 had DVT with PE. Six athletes sustained more than 1 VTE. The mean age at time of VTE was 29.3 years (range, 19-42 years). Mean (±SD) time lost from play was 6.7 ± 4.9 months (range, 3 days to career end). Seven athletes did not return to play. Players with upper extremity DVT had a faster return to play (mean ± SD, 4.3 ± 2.7 months) than those with lower extremity DVT (5.9 ± 3.8 months), PE (10.8 ± 6.8 months), or DVT with PE (8.2 ± 2.6 months) (F = 5.69, P = .002). No significant difference was found regarding time of return to play between sports. Conclusion: VTE in professional athletes led to an average of 6.7 months lost from play. The majority of athletes were able to return to play after a period of anticoagulation or surgery. Those with an upper extremity DVT returned to play faster than those with other types of VTE. Further study is needed to look into modifiable risk factors for these events and to establish treatment and return-to-play guidelines to ensure the safety of these athletes

Verteilungswirkungen der Reformpläne der Großen Koalition : Rentner und Familien sind die Hauptprofiteure

Das stabile Wirtschaftswachstum der vergangenen Jahre hat finanzielle Spielräume im deutschen Staatshaushalt geschaffen. Diese will die neu gebildete Große Koalition unter anderem nutzen, um breite Bevölkerungsschichten zu entlasten. Im Koalitionsvertrag von CDU/CSU und SPD sind dazu eine ganze Reihe von sozial- und steuerpolitischen Reformmaßnahmen aufgeführt, deren Verteilungseffekte in der vorliegenden Untersuchung abgeschätzt werden. Um das Ausmaß der Verteilungseffekte festzustellen, wird das verfügbare Haushaltseinkommen vor und nach der Reform ermittelt. Unterstellt wird auch, dass sämtliche Maßnahmen heute eingeführt werden, auch wenn deren Umsetzung selbstverständlich für unterschiedliche Zeitpunkte geplant ist. Folgende Maßnahmen werden in den Berechnungen berücksichtigt: die weitgehende Abschaffung des Solidaritätszuschlags, die Erhöhung des Kindergeldes und des Kinderfreibetrags, die Abschaffung der Obergrenze beim Kinderzuschlag, die Abschaffung der Kita-Gebühren, die Absenkung der Beiträge zur Arbeitslosenversicherung und die paritätische Finanzierung der Krankenversicherungsbeiträge zu gleichen Teilen durch Beschäftigte und Betriebe. Außerdem werden die Stabilisierung des Rentenniveaus bei 48 Prozent und die Ausweitung der Mütterrente untersucht

Essays in Empirical Public Economics

This Dissertation is devoted to the empirical analysis of the consequences of government action. In particular, it investigates the distributional impact of fundamental tax reform and the welfare cost of bequest taxation. Further chapters assess the sustainability of public budgets in light of demographic change and the productivity impact of air pollution

New challenges in studying nutrition-disease interactions in the developing world.

Latest estimates indicate that nutritional deficiencies account for 3 million child deaths each year in less-developed countries. Targeted nutritional interventions could therefore save millions of lives. However, such interventions require careful optimization to maximize benefit and avoid harm. Progress toward designing effective life-saving interventions is currently hampered by some serious gaps in our understanding of nutrient metabolism in humans. In this Personal Perspective, we highlight some of these gaps and make some proposals as to how improved research methods and technologies can be brought to bear on the problems of undernourished children in the developing world

Manuscript has been retracted

International Journal of Exercise Science 7(2) : 128-139, 2014. Manuscript has been retracted

Demographic Change and the European Income Distribution. ESRI DISCUSSION PAPER SERIES IZA DP No. 11440, March 2018

This paper assesses the effect of key demographic changes (population ageing and upskilling) that are expected by 2030 on the income distribution in the EU-27 and examines the potential of tax-benefit systems to counterbalance negative developments. Theory predicts that population ageing should increase income inequality, while the effect of up-skilling is more ambiguous. Tax-benefit systems may stabilize these expected changes though this is largely an empirical question given their typically complex nature. We use a decomposition technique to isolate the effect of projected demographic change on income inequality and poverty from the reaction of the labor market to this demographic change through wage adjustments. Our results show that demographic change is likely to lead to increasing inequality while related wage adjustments work mainly in the opposite direction. Changes to projected relative poverty are minimal for most countries. With a few exceptions, EU tax-benefit systems are able to absorb most of projected increase in market income inequality

Towards Reconstructing Multi-Step Cyber Attacks in Modern Cloud Environments with Tripwires

Rapidly-changing cloud environments that consist of heavily interconnected components are difficult to secure. Existing solutions often try to correlate many weak indicators to identify and reconstruct multi-step cyber attacks. The lack of a true, causal link between most of these indicators still leaves administrators with a lot of false-positives to browse through. We argue that cyber deception can improve the precision of attack detection systems, if used in a structured, and automatic way, i.e., in the form of so-called tripwires that ultimately span an attack graph, which assists attack reconstruction algorithms. This paper proposes an idea for a framework that combines cyber deception, automatic tripwire injection and attack graphs, which eventually enables us to reconstruct multi-step cyber attacks in modern cloud environments.Comment: To be published in European Interdisciplinary Cybersecurity Conference (EICC 2020