Hertie School Research Repository
Not a member yet
2650 research outputs found
Sort by
Tax Expenditure and the Treatment of Tax Incentives for Investment
No full textGovernments use tax expenditures to boost investment, innovation and employment. However, these schemes are largely opaque, costly and often ineffective in reaching their stated goals. They also frequently trigger unwanted side effects. In order to improve the performance of these tools, we present three concrete policy proposals: First, governments should increase transparency on tax benefits. G20 members should take the lead on this with frequent and comprehensive tax expenditure reports. Second, G20 governments should improve the design of tax incentives with the aim of minimizing the generation of windfall profits and negative spillover effects within and across (in particular, on poorer) countries. Third, governments should phase out tax expenditures that are environmentally harmful, including tax incentives for fossil fuels and other schemes that promote an unsustainable use of natural resources
Polarized perceptions, polarized preferences? Understanding the relationship between inequality and preferences for redistribution
No full textWhen studying the relationship between inequality and preferences for redistribution, it is often assumed – either implicitly or explicitly – that individuals are informed about actual levels of inequality. Newer research, however, challenges this assumption and shows that perceived inequality differs from actual inequality. Empirically, these inequality perceptions are rather good predictors for preferences for redistribution. This article argues that individuals answer the standard question for measuring preferences for redistribution based on their inequality perceptions. I conduct a simple regression analysis based on two waves of the ISSP (1999 and 2009) and show that (1) inequality perceptions are systematically linked to socio-economic variables as well as to ideological beliefs rather than to actual inequality. Then, I disaggregate the variance in inequality perceptions to a part which is explainable by socio-economic and ideological determinants (the common control variables for explaining preferences for redistribution) and an unexplained part. I show that (2) the explained as well as the unexplained variance part is associated with preferences for redistribution. I argue that this finding makes considering inequality perceptions practically relevant since standard control variables do not fully account for variation in perceived inequality
Scientific and subversive: The two faces of the fourth era of political campaigning
No full textThis article sets out the case that democracies are now entering a fourth phase of “data-driven” political campaigning. Building on the existing campaigns literature, we identify several key shifts in practice that define the new phase, namely: (1) an organizational and strategic dependency on digital technology and “big data,” (2) a reliance on networked communication, (3) the individualized micro-targeting of campaign messages, and (4) the internationalization of the campaign sphere. Departing from prior studies, we also argue that the new phase is distinguished, by a bifurcation, into two variants—the scientific and the subversive. While sharing a common core, these two modes differ, in that the former retains a commitment to the normative goals of campaigning, that is, to mobilize and inform voters, while the latter explicitly rejects and subverts these aims, focusing instead on demobilization and the spread of misinformation. Both are presented as abstract or “ideal” types, although we do point out how features of each have appeared in recent election campaigns by mainstream and populist parties. We conclude by discussing the implications of these trends for the long-term future health of democracy
Why Do Lone Mothers Fare Worse than Lone Fathers? Lone Parenthood and Welfare Benefit Receipt in Germany
No full textThis article uses data from the German microcensuses of 2007 and 2012 to examine gender differences in welfare reliance among lone parents. Binary logistic regression was employed as the method of analysis. We show that the risk of welfare benefit receipt is lower among lone fathers than lone mothers. We also find that these gender differences can be partially explained by the socio-economic characteristics of lone fathers; compared to lone mothers, lone fathers are, on average, better educated and more likely to be living with older children. Gender differences decreased over time among parents who have never married, but remained constant among divorced parents. We present a discussion of our findings in light of recent policy reforms, in particular the reform of the German Maintenance Law of 2008, which curbed the ability of a divorced parent to collect support from an ex-spouse
Torn between economic efficiency and social equality? Short-track apprenticeships in Denmark, Germany and Switzerland
No full textEducational institutions, especially those facilitating vocational education and training (VET), face the challenge of combining social goals, such as the provision of quality education for a large section of the population, with rising economic utility demands. However, we know little About how VET systems institutionalize these different demands and, further, how social and economic goals are actually institutionalized in VET. Our article aims to unpack this puzzle by analysing shorttrack dual vocational training programmes (short-tracks) in Denmark, Germany and Switzerland. These short-tracks combine on-the-job and school-based training, targeting candidates who face difficulties entering full-length dual programmes. Thus, short-tracks are prime examples of training programmes located at the nexus of economic and social demands. In our comparative institutional analysis, we bridge the political economy of collective skill formation and sociological institutionalism literatures. We find that the institutionalization of goals in VET not only differs between countries but that there is also considerable variation within national VET systems. Our analysis reveals that VET regulations, regional and sectoral standards, and the legitimization of key actors can differ greatly in their institutionalization of social and economic goals
Building and enhancing climate policy ambition with transfers: allowance allocation and revenue spending in the EU ETS
No full textSustaining and increasing climate policy ambition in the presence of heterogeneous interests and potential veto players is a key challenge for climate governance. We examine the conceptual and empirical significance of transfers to balance heterogeneous interests and build support for raising climate policy ambition in the development of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). We provide insights into how to strategically sequence ‘brown cushioning’ and ‘green push’ policy incentives within the EU ETS to deliberately incentivize transformative change among actor constituencies towards decarbonization endogenously. The analysis demonstrates the significance of preventive and compensatory buy-in, via allowance allocation and revenue spending design, for the introduction and each major reform of the scheme. Given the potential for a substantially increasing value distributed within the EU ETS, future policy options should aim to strengthen the scheme’s inherent incentives towards decarbonization and to prevent an increasing structural divide among EU member states
Bread and Bullets
No full textStandard economics omits the role of narratives (the stories that people tell themselves and others) when they make all kinds of decisions. Narratives play a role in understanding the environment; focusing attention; predicting events; motivating action; assigning social roles and identities; defining power relations; and establishing and conveying social norms. This paper describes the role narratives play in decision making, as it also juxtaposes this description against the backdrop of the Bolshevik-spawned narrative that played a critical role in the history of Russia and the Soviet Union in the 20th Century
Cooperation, Motivation and Social Balance
No full textThis paper examines the reflexive interplay between individual decisions and social forces to analyze the evolution of cooperation in the presence of “multi-directedness,” whereby people's preferences depend on their psychological motives. People have access to multiple, discrete motives. Different motives may be activated by different social settings. Inter-individual differences in dispositional types affect the responsiveness of people's motives to their social settings. The evolution of these dispositional types is driven by changes in the frequencies of social settings. In this context, economic policies can influence economic decisions not merely by modifying incentives operating through given preferences, but also by influencing people's motives (thereby changing their preferences) and by changing the distribution of dispositional types in the population (thereby changing their motivational responsiveness to social settings)
Beyond capital and wealth
No full textThe world is economically integrated, but socially fragmented. Thus economic progress can become decoupled from social progress. As long as social progress is closely linked to and flows from economic progress, it is appropriate for government to focus attention on economic policy to promote economic growth. Indeed, for at least the first four decades of the postwar period, there are good reasons to believe that this was broadly the case for most developed economies. Then, starting in the 1980s and accelerating after the financial crisis of 2008, we argue that social progress in these countries became progressively decoupled from economic progress. The result has been the phenomenon of misery in the midst of plenty: despite continued economic growth, we witness rising dissatisfaction among large segments of the public, declining trust in most public and private institutions, rising nationalism and populism, rising discontent with globalization, increasing unwillingness to accept migrants and refugees, and growing ethnic and religious conflicts. This paper argues that the prevailing thinking about government policy is an outgrowth of the Age of Coupling. In the Age of Decoupling, however, a radically different approach to government policy is required, one that focuses not just on material wellbeing and its distribution, but also on promoting people’s sense of empowerment and social solidarity