Themenplattform "Europäische Herausforderungen"

The objective of the study is to describe the potential effects of some possible corporate tax reforms on economic efficiency, inequality and tax competition. The study will offer an in-depth descriptive overview of the channels and possible interactions between them, where relevant. Furthermore, it will explore the main components of potential reforms, each within the Single Market and at international level: a reallocation of taxing rights across jurisdictions, the implementation of a minimum effective tax rate, and a harmonisation of tax bases. When quantification is possible, the study will also provide the methodology to estimate the magnitudes of the various effects of the reforms on economic efficiency, inequality and tax competition, together with preliminary estimates of the effects. Lastly, the study will didactically describe in detail whether and how the European Commission's CORTAX model might be further developed to include the potential effects discussed. In case the effects are not currently included in CORTAX, the study will conductible explain how to integrate them into the model and provide a detailed description of the methodology to integrate the effects, in the form of reduced-form equations.

Diese Studie liefert ein Update zu den 2017 vom WIFO berechneten Handels- und Wohlfahrtseffekten des Brexit für die österreichische Wirtschaft ("Estimating the Trade and Welfare Effects of Brexit. A Panel Data Structural Gravity Model"). Die Schätzung erfolgt mit einem strukturellen Gravitationsmodell auf einem disaggregierten Branchenniveau. Die Ergebnisse für unterschiedliche Extremszenarien ("Hard Brexit" und "Soft Brexit") werden mit dem aktuellen Verhandlungsstand im November 2020 verglichen.

Für die Analyse kleinräumiger Effekte der Struktur- und Kohäsionspolitik der EU werden für ausgewählte Pilotregionen Daten zu geförderten Projekten in den Programmperioden 2007 bis 2013 und 2014 bis 2020 geförderten Projekten mit Satellitenbildern verknüpft. Zudem wird eine Regionaldatenbank auf möglichst kleinräumiger Datenbasis erstellt, um die Auswirkungen der EU-Förderpolitik auf lokaler Ebene umfassend zu analysieren.

Die Europäische Zentralbank (EZB) ist in der Durchführung der Geldpolitik unabhängig. Sie ist aber gegenüber dem Ausschuss für Wirtschaft und Währung des Europäischen Parlamentes rechenschaftspflichtig. Dies geschieht über den "Währungspolitischen Dialog". Alle drei Monate berichtet der Präsident der EZB oder gelegentlich ein anderes Mitglied des EZB-Direktoriums vor dem Ausschuss über die Geldpolitik und beantwortet Fragen der Abgeordneten, die zuvor von Experten und Expertinnen informiert werden. Das WIFO ist Teil eines Konsortiums von Instituten, das dem Ausschuss im Zeitraum 2020/2024 unabhängige Expertenberatung im Bereich der Geld- und Wirtschaftspolitik zur Verfügung stellt.

Within this framework contract with the European Commisssion DG TAXUD specific economic studies in the area of taxation will be commissioned. WIFO has the lead of a consortium which consists of CASE (Poland), Copenhagen Economics (Denmark/International), IEB (Spain), Ifo (Germany), PwC (Belgium/International) and VATT (Finland).

The dissemination tools of DG TAXUD in the European Commission are evaluated.

This project uses the rich historic experience of repeated large-scale and unexpected economic (dis-)integrations at the Austrian-Czech border to test the predictions of economic geography models of regional development. In particular we analyse the impact of these dis-integration events on regional development: First, in both Austria and the Czech Republic so that we focus on two countries which for a substantial part of the period analysed were characterised by rather different political regimes and huge differences in incomes and costs, that additionally changed over time; second, for a large set of (dis-)integration episodes that span a period of almost a century so that we compare different (dis-)integration events, that took place at different points in time at which the considered countries differed substantially in income levels and institutions; third, with respect to many potential adjustments (such as population and employment and unemployment growth as well as firm entry and exit) that will inform future research on the mechanisms through which the regional economic effects of integration operate.

This project provides the first economic assessment of economic consequences for the Austrian economy of the anticipated MERCOSUR free trade agreement based on the legislative draft of the agreement published in mid-2019. The focus of the analysis is on the quantitative impact on employment and value added of the Austrian economy and on consequences for non-trade concerns. Among the latter are implications for socio-economic aspects like labour rights and potential implications for the environment, in particular on climate change aspects. The quantitative analysis will cover in more detail the agricultural sector which is likely to be exposed to a larger extent than other sectors. The purpose of the study is to shed more light on the effect of this agreement on Austria. The Austrian parliamentary board on EU affairs decided to obstruct any steps towards freer trade with MERCOSUR countries. This study aims to explore the rationale of this decision and to explore further aspects that may not yet have been considered.

The European Emission Trading System (EU ETS) that covers greenhouse gas emissions from manufacturing and energy supply is a key instrument of the EU's climate policy. Since the start of the scheme in 2005, the credibility of the EU ETS has, however, been put into question due to a persistent oversupply of allowances (reflecting the regulators' uncertainty about firms' emission levels in the first trading period and a drop in emissions following the financial market and economic crisis in the second trading period). Numerous changes to the design of the EU ETS have been made in order to tackle this issue. The project SAFE aims at contributing to the research on the functioning and effectiveness of emissions trading schemes. It analyses whether the EU ETS despite a considerable surplus of allowances and low prices spurred abatement activities of the covered firms and whether firms have perceived changes in the incentives provided by the scheme over time. Moreover, it analyses how firms engaged in allowance trading and if their trading behaviour changed since the start of the EU ETS. To answer these questions, a case study for Austria is conducted in which an analysis of data on allocations, verified emissions and trading flows from the EUTL is combined with a survey among firms covered by the EU ETS.

Demographic developments taking place in all European countries lead to ageing societies and a decrease of the labour force and accordingly the labour share in total income. At the same time, the overall progressivity of European tax systems has been eroded over time. Against this background, options to secure the long-term sufficiency and sustainability of European tax systems need to be explored. The proposed project aims at modelling the future wealth distribution in five selected EU member countries to derive inheritances and gifts based on different demographic and wealth projection scenarios. On this basis, various inheritance and gift tax scenarios will be simulated to estimate potential inheritance and gift revenues for a projection period of 30 years.