The Heterogeneous Impact of Children on Maternal Employment: Evidence from East and West Germany (with J. Köckeis). forthcoming: Economics of Transition and Institutional Change.
This article estimates the causal effect of fertility on female employment outcomes using German administrative tax data from 2018. By comparing East and West Germany, our paper contributes to the literature on the relationship between motherhood and maternal labor supply in post-communist countries. To address the problem of endogeneity of fertility, we use twin births as an exogenous variation for family size. Our results suggest a negative relationship between the number of children and maternal employment outcomes. However, this connection is significantly stronger in West Germany for the second and third child than in East Germany. By the fourth child, the effects in the two parts of the country become more similar. Further analyses suggest that these differences can be explained in particular by regional institutional conditions, such as the availability of public childcare facilities. In addition, these differences can also be attributed to the attitudes towards working mothers of people in the immediate vicinity.
Easy come, easy go – Non-compliance, overwithholding, and income tax revenue in Germany, June 2025.
This paper examines tax non-compliance among individuals in Germany who were legally required to file a tax return but failed to do so. Using administrative tax data and simulation-based analysis, we quantify the financial implications of non-compliance for approximately 1.5 million affected individuals. Findings suggest that over 690,000 non-filers would have been financially better off had they complied with their obligation to file a tax return. Tax revenue is about 100 million Euro higher than it would be under full compliance. Using a control group of comparable compliers, a probit model indicates a statistically significant and positive relationship between (potential) gains from non-compliance and non-compliant behavior. The study offers new evidence on non-filers based on large-scale administrative data rather than audits or surveys.