Publications of the Research Group Inequality and Public Policy

  1. ZEW Discussion Paper No. 25-013 // 2025

    The Effect of Taxes on CEO Performance

    In this paper, we investigate the effect of higher personal income taxes on CEO and firm performance in publicly traded US firms. In response to higher taxes on compensation, CEOs are less likely to reach…

  2. ZEW Discussion Paper No. 25-012 // 2025

    Narratives About Fiscal Policy: Are Firm Decision-Makers’ Tax Preferences Driven by Redistribution or Fiscal Consolidation Motives?

    Motivated by the increasing frequency with which business leaders publicly express their views on policy issues and by recent findings on the role of narratives in shaping preferences and behaviors, we…

  3. ZEW Discussion Paper No. 25-011 // 2025

    Taxes and Pay Without Performance: Evidence From Executives

    This paper contributes to the ongoing discourse on the taxation of top-income earners by empirically investigating the impact of tax policy changes on pay without performance. Using data on executive…

  4. ZEW Discussion Paper No. 25-002 // 2025

    Gritty Peers

    We use the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health to explore how high school peers’ grit, a personality trait characterized by perseverance and passion, influences long-term outcomes…

  5. ZEW Discussion Paper No. 24-078 // 2024

    The Making of China and India in the 21st Century: Long-Run Human Capital Accumulation From 1900 to 2020

    We construct a novel dataset of human capital accumulation in China and India from 1900 to 2020 by combining historical records and educational reports to analyze the role of education in economic divergence.…