Compiling a harmonized database from Germany's 1978 to 2003 sample surveys of income and expenditure

We outline a procedure for combining six cross-sections of the German Sample Survey of Income and Expenditure, and discuss potential pitfalls of such a venture. Particularly, we investigate the consequences of a major break in the survey design for inter-temporal comparisons of expenditure categories: a reduction of the surveying period from twelve to three month taking place between the census years 1993 and 1998. We demonstrate that for several commodities a division-by-four of annually-surveyed expenses cannot guarantee inter-temporal comparability of expenditure distributions. We suggest and test the performance of several alternative conversion procedures. Suitability of conversion strategies hinges upon good-specific purchase properties. --German Sample Survey of Income and Expenditure,annual vs. trimestrial data

Evidence from the German Taxpayer Panel

This paper investigates the inter-temporal loss usage of tax units in Ger- many. Tax units that experience a loss in a year can offset that loss with positive income from adjacent year to receive a tax refund. Similar to compa- nies, tax units can employ losses as carry-back in the year before the loss or as carry-forward in the year following the loss. The tax code does not force a particular loss usage but provides tax units with freedom to allocate the losses between carry-back and carry-forward. Choosing an individual appro- priate allocation of carry-back and carry-forward creates a maximal tax refund. Inter-temporal loss usage is a special case of tax avoidance: tax units receive a tax refund from loss usage as carry-forward (carry-back) but forfeit the al- ternative refund from carry-back (carry-forward). Estimations show that the probability of maximizing the tax refund highly depends on the difference of the tax rates from the loss adjacent years. An increase of 10 percentage points of the tax rate difference increases the probability of tax refund maximization by 24.5%. This confirms that tax avoidance is strong in case of significant tax incentives

evidence from the German taxpayer panel

We estimate the elasticity of charitable giving with respect to price and income changes using a rich panel of income tax returns covering the period 2001 to 2006. Employing censored quantile regression and exploiting the panel structure, the advantage of our analysis is twofold: First, we derive results for different points in the underlying distribution of charitable giving and allow for giving to be heterogeneous. Thus, we do not only estimate responses of giving to prices and incomes but also where the incentives matter most. Second, we disentangle long-run responses to persistent changes in price and income from temporary reactions, consumption smoothing, or tax planning. Indeed, our results suggest that price elasticity is heterogenous across the distribution of donors and that the persistent price elasticity is close to one in absolute value at the upper and lower tail of the distribution of charitable giving

The elasticity of taxable income for Germany and its sensitivity to the appropriate model

This paper provides new empirical insights on the elasticity of taxable income for Germany. Using a rich panel of German income tax return data, the tax reforms of 2004 and 2005 are exploited implementing a new dynamic income model. Showing and discussing potential estimation problems of the most prominent model in the literature by Gruber and Saez (2002), this dynamic model delivers significant smaller estimates of the elasticity of taxable income. The overall estimate is 0.36 and robust against a number of sensitivity checks including non linear income controls. Elasticities differ between married and single assessed taxpayers with an elasticity of 0.17 for single and 0.44 for married taxpayers. These elasticities are similar to recent German results and considerablly smaller than recent results for the US from Weber(2014)

Evidence from Germany

This paper provides new empirical insights on the elasticity of taxable income to the net-oftax rate. Using a panel of German income tax return data, we followed taxpayers from 2001 to 2006 to analyze the effects of the German tax reforms of 2004 and 2005. Implementing a dynamic model as proposed by Holmlund and Söderström (2011), we are able to disentangle short-term and long-term responsiveness. These estimates allow us to distinguish between different dimensions of behavioral changes: short-term income reactions in contrast to ‘real’ changes in (reporting) behavior. We compare our results with recent German estimates from the established approach by Gruber and Saez (2002) applied by Gottfried and Witzcak (2009). Following Chetty`s (2009) theoretical considerations, we use multiple (tax code related) income concepts and alternative sample choices. We provide several robustness and validity analyses of the most common income concept, i.e. taxable income excluding capital. Our preferred specification yields (very) high short-term yet small long-term elasticites. The latter range from 0 to 0.16, implying none or only modest persistent behavioral changes to marginal tax rate cuts

sample surveys of income and expenditure

We outline a procedure for combining six cross-sections of the German Sample Survey of Income and Expenditure, and discuss potential pitfalls of such a venture. Particularly, we investigate the consequences of a major break in the survey design for inter-temporal comparisons of expenditure categories: a reduction of the surveying period from twelve to three month taking place between the census years 1993 and 1998. We demonstrate that for several commodities a division-by-four of annually-surveyed expenses cannot guarantee inter-temporal comparability of expenditure distributions. We suggest and test the performance of several alternative conversion procedures. Suitability of conversion strategies hinges upon good-specific purchase properties

In vitro activity of hyaluronic acid and human serum on periodontal biofilm and periodontal ligament fibroblasts.

OBJECTIVES A beneficial effect of cross-linked hyaluronic acid (cHA) on periodontal wound healing and regeneration has recently been demonstrated. The present in vitro study was designed to obtain deeper knowledge on the effect of cHA when applied in the gingival sulcus (serum-rich environment) during non-surgical periodontal therapy. MATERIALS AND METHODS The influence of cHA, human serum (HS), and cHA/HS on (i) a 12-species biofilm formation, (ii) the adhesion of periodontal ligament fibroblasts (PDLF) to dentine surface, (iii) the expression and secretion of interleukin-8, and (iv) the expression of receptors of HA in PDLF and gingival fibroblasts (GF) were evaluated. RESULTS At 4 h of biofilm formation, cHA and HS in combination (cHA/HS) slightly decreased the colony-forming unit counts in biofilm whereas the metabolic activity of biofilm was reduced in all test groups (cHA, HS, cHA/HS) vs. control. At 24 h, the quantity of biofilm was reduced in all test groups vs. untreated control. The test substances did not affect adhesion of PDLF to dentin. HS increased the expression of IL-8 by PDLF and GF which was partially downregulated by cHA. HS and/or cHA promoted the expression of the HA receptor RHAMM in GF but not in PDLF. CONCLUSIONS In summary, the present data indicate that serum neither negatively affect the activity of cHA against periodontal biofilm nor had any unwanted influence on the activity of PDLF. CLINICAL RELEVANCE These findings lend additional support for the positive effects of cHA on cells involved in periodontal wound healing, thus pointing to its potential use in non-surgical periodontal therapy

The acute vestibular syndrome: prevalence of new hearing loss and its diagnostic value.

OBJECTIVES To assess the prevalence of new hearing losses in patients with acute vestibular syndrome (AVS) and to start to evaluate its diagnostic value for the differentiation between peripheral and central causes. DESIGN We performed a cross-sectional prospective study in AVS patients presenting to our Emergency Department (ED) from February 2015 to November 2020. All patients received an MRI, Head-impulse test, Nystagmus test and Test of skew ('HINTS'), caloric testing and a pure-tone audiometry. RESULTS We assessed 71 AVS patients, 17 of whom had a central and 54 a peripheral cause of dizziness. 12.7% had an objective hearing loss. 'HINTS' had an accuracy of 78.9% to diagnose stroke, whereas 'HINTS' plus audiometry 73.2%. 'HINTS' sensitivity was 82.4% and specificity 77.8% compared to 'HINTS' plus audiometry showing a sensitivity of 82.4% and specificity of 70.4%. The four patients with stroke and minor stroke had all central 'HINTS'. 55% of the patients did not perceive their new unilateral hearing loss. CONCLUSIONS We found that almost one-eighth of the AVS patients had a new onset of hearing loss and only half had self-reported it. 'HINTS' plus audiometry proved to be less accurate to diagnose a central cause than 'HINTS' alone. Audiometry offered little diagnostic accuracy to detect strokes in the ED but might be useful to objectify a new hearing loss that was underestimated in the acute phase. Complete hearing loss should be considered a red flag, as three in four patients suffered from a central cause