https://hdl.handle.net/10419/331939 2026-10-09T07:01:08Z 2026-10-09T07:01:08Z Strausz, Roland https://hdl.handle.net/10419/339550 2026-04-04T09:07:03Z 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Consumer consent regulation Authors: Strausz, Roland Abstract: Consumer consent regulation is the cornerstone of modern data privacy regulation such as the European GDPR and the Californian CCPA. By ensuring that consumers can reject any harmful data collection, the regulation seems an effective tool for protecting consumers against price discrimination. By contrast, I provide the insight that consent regulation alone is ineffective because it provides firms with the loophole to commit to unattractive offers to dissenting consumers. Effective consent regulation therefore requires an explicit regulation of the firm's dissent offer. This is informationally demanding; regulation that merely insists on "reasonable" (sequential rational) offers is ineffective.

2026-01-01T00:00:00Z Burhop, Carsten Selgert, Felix https://hdl.handle.net/10419/339549 2026-04-04T09:06:57Z 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Dividend policy: An empirical analysis for imperial Germany Authors: Burhop, Carsten; Selgert, Felix Abstract: In the German Empire, corporations almost always paid a dividend to their shareholders. Dividends have been cut or increased in line with the development of profits. We demonstrate that the target dividend and the average dividend tended to be nearly the same. If the dividend paid deviated from the target, we measure an extraordinarily fast return towards the target. Our analysis of the change in dividends, the payout ratio, and the dynamics of the dividend level provides evidence in favour of the agency theory of dividend policy. Companies with good investment opportunities paid comparatively high dividends. An improvement in shareholder protection weakened this effect. Best practice voting rights at the company level have systematically influenced dividend levels, the relevance of investment opportunities for the dividend policy and the speed of adjustment after a deviation from the target.

2026-01-01T00:00:00Z Breyer, Friedrich Sterba, Maj-Britt https://hdl.handle.net/10419/339551 2026-04-04T09:07:00Z 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Are taxes or user-fees more popular among politicians? The case of childcare Authors: Breyer, Friedrich; Sterba, Maj-Britt Abstract: How shall publicly provided excludable goods be financed - by general taxation or user fees? The general conclusion of the existing literature is that exclusive tax financing is neither efficient nor desirable under widely shared distributive goals. A striking example is childcare because here fees are often made dependent on parents' income. Given the rather clear arguments in favor of user fees for formal childcare, it is surprising to notice that some German states with leftist governments have abolished user fees and replaced them with pure tax financing. It is the purpose of this research to investigate the attitudes of politicians towards user fees for publicly funded childcare and to explore the justifications given for these attitudes. We do so by directly surveying members of eight federal state legislatures. The survey results confirm the experience of real political decisions in that left-leaning politicians tend to oppose parental fees. They do so mainly with the justification that "education must be free for all". Right-leaning politicians tend to support fees for various reasons. We discuss how these results can be reconciled with the redistributive goals of leftist parties.

2026-01-01T00:00:00Z Miniaci, Raffaele Panteghini, Paolo https://hdl.handle.net/10419/343393 2026-09-03T15:59:07Z 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: On the capital structure of foreign subsidiaries: Evidence from panel data quantile regression models Authors: Miniaci, Raffaele; Panteghini, Paolo Abstract: This paper investigates how business taxation and profitability affect the capital structure of European subsidiaries controlled by foreign multinational corporations. While traditional financial theories, such as the Pecking Order Theory (POT) and Trade-Off Theory (TOT), offer contrasting predictions - emphasizing, respectively, the irrelevance or centrality of tax factors - neither fully accounts for multinational settings or firm heterogeneity. Using a large panel dataset from Orbis, we analyze 70,160 subsidiaries across 29 countries. To overcome limitations of standard linear panel models, we estimate the Unconditional Quantile Partial Effects ( UQPE ) adjusting for fixed or correlated random effects. Our results show that corporate tax effects are heterogeneous across the leverage distribution. Specifically, subsidiary tax rates positively influence leverage, particularly in the lower deciles of the distribution. Parent company tax rates exhibit an inverse relationship, mainly affecting the lowest deciles of the leverage distribution. Profitability reduces leverage across all quantiles, according to the POT and some TOT models. Additionally, other firm characteristics (e.g. asset structure, liquidity, and firm size) display quantile-specific effects on leverage. Quite importantly, taxes affect companies' capital structure in heterogeneous ways. With our findings we show that average marginal effects mask substantial heterogeneity. This research contributes to the ongoing tax policy debate by providing empirical evidence that underscores the importance of firm-specific factors and the need for tailored policy approaches in corporate finance. As we show, tax incentives have the strongest impact on the lowest levels of leverage, while the higher levels are much less responsive, probably because of the constraints faced by heavily indebted companies. Policymakers should consider these differential effects to design targeted tax policies that effectively influence corporate financing decisions.

2026-01-01T00:00:00Z