This article systematically investigates the attitudes of voters towards capital taxation and further topics in the realm of the welfare state. We revisit various streams of literature and explore which views, beliefs and perceptions are connected to tax preferences and how these perceptions differ between various voting groups. Special weight is attached to questions of the distribution of income, wealth and opportunities. Inference relies on the outcomes of two large scale online surveys conducted in Austria. Our results suggest that, among others, opinions on fairness in the economic system in general as well as perceptions of inequality are strong predictors of tax preferences in Austria. In addition, these beliefs vary heavily across parties and are thus promising candidates to explain the variation in tax preferences between different voting groups. / Series: INEQ Working Paper Series

En esta tesis doctoral se estudia el uso de las mezclas ternarias NH3/H2O/XOH (X: NaOH, KOH, LiOH) en ciclos de refrigeración por absorción activados con energía solar térmica o calor residual. La adición de hidróxidos alcalinos NaOH, KOH o LiOH a la mezcla amoníaco/agua disminuye la temperatura de ebullición de la mezcla y favorece la separación del amoniaco al desplazar el equilibrio de disolución del amoniaco en agua hacia la separación del amoniaco en fase gas, con la consiguiente reducción de las etapas de rectificación y un aumento del COP y de la capacidad frigorífica del equipo. Sin embargo, la presencia del hidróxido en el absorbedor es perjudicial ya que reduce la capacidad de absorción del amoníaco por el absorbente. Este efecto puede contrarrestarse limitando la presencia del OH- en el absorbedor para lo cual el ciclo básico ha de modificarse incluyendo una etapa de separación que confine el OH- en el generador. / The use of ammonia-water absorption refrigeration cycles driven by low temperature heat sources such as thermal solar energy or waste heat from some new energy distributed generation technologies is so far not feasible due to the low temperature of some of these heat sources. To overcome this problem over the past several years, it has been proposed the addition of hydroxides to the ammonia-water mixture.The objective of this thesis is to study the effect of the NaOH, KOH and LiOH in the liquid vapour equilibrium of NH3/H2O mixture in order to reduce the boiling temperature, to select the hydroxide that presents more advantages for the operation of the absorption cycle and perform several simulations with the selected hydroxide to evaluate the overall performance of the cycle using the new ternary mixture.

Devido à importância da madeira na construção civil e a preocupação com o impacto ambiental, a engenharia passou a se preocupar com a racionalização de seu uso por meio da apresentação de produtos engenheirados, buscando melhorar as propriedades técnicas das construções em madeira. Novos modos de manufatura foram introduzidos, principalmente no campo da engenharia estrutural, fazendo com que se desenvolvessem elementos comprovadamente superiores em suas propriedades físico-químicas e econômicas a outros normalmente usados. Neste trabalho foram avaliadas as propriedades de resistência e elasticidade de vigas de madeira de seção transversal \"I\", utilizadas na sustentação de painéis de fôrmas para concreto armado e em obras civis estruturais, incluindo as emendas de mesas e alma-mesa utilizadas em sua fabricação, por meio de ensaios de flexão e cisalhamento na linha de cola. Essas vigas são comercialmente chamadas de H2O devido a sua altura de 20 centímetros, sendo compostas de mesa em madeira serrada, almas em compensado sarrafeado, compensado laminado ou madeira serrada, e dois tipos de adesivos o de poliuretano e o de resorcinol-formol. As análises visaram comprovar a eficiência e viabilidade técnica da fabricação e utilização destes materiais nestas vigas. A configuração de viga H2O que apresentou os melhores resultados comparativamente com o mínimo exigido nos ensaios especificados pela norma européia EN 13377:2002 foi a composta por alma de compensado, emenda dentada e colada com o adesivo de Resorcinol-Formol. / Due to the importance of wood in construction and the concern about the environmental impact, engineers have worried about the rationalization of its use through the development of engineered products, seeking the improvement of the technical properties. In this study, the I-beams built with reforestation wood were used for concrete formwork purpose. Their mechanical properties and the connections between flanges and web used in its manufacture were evaluated by means of bending tests and shear in the glue line. These beams are commercially called H2O. The flanges were made from Pinus Oocarpa, the webs were made from laminated plywood, block plywood, and Pinus Oocarpa, and two types of adhesives were used: polyurethane and resorcinol-formaldehyde. The H2O beam configuration showed the best results compared to the minimum required by European standard EN 13377:2002 was with the flange made from lumber, glued with resorcinol-formaldehyde and the web of laminated plywood.

Devido à importância da madeira na construção civil e a preocupação com o impacto ambiental, a engenharia passou a se preocupar com a racionalização de seu uso por meio da apresentação de produtos engenheirados, buscando melhorar as propriedades técnicas das construções em madeira. Novos modos de manufatura foram introduzidos, principalmente no campo da engenharia estrutural, fazendo com que se desenvolvessem elementos comprovadamente superiores em suas propriedades físico-químicas e econômicas a outros normalmente usados. Neste trabalho foram avaliadas as propriedades de resistência e elasticidade de vigas de madeira de seção transversal \"I\", utilizadas na sustentação de painéis de fôrmas para concreto armado e em obras civis estruturais, incluindo as emendas de mesas e alma-mesa utilizadas em sua fabricação, por meio de ensaios de flexão e cisalhamento na linha de cola. Essas vigas são comercialmente chamadas de H2O devido a sua altura de 20 centímetros, sendo compostas de mesa em madeira serrada, almas em compensado sarrafeado, compensado laminado ou madeira serrada, e dois tipos de adesivos o de poliuretano e o de resorcinol-formol. As análises visaram comprovar a eficiência e viabilidade técnica da fabricação e utilização destes materiais nestas vigas. A configuração de viga H2O que apresentou os melhores resultados comparativamente com o mínimo exigido nos ensaios especificados pela norma européia EN 13377:2002 foi a composta por alma de compensado, emenda dentada e colada com o adesivo de Resorcinol-Formol. / Due to the importance of wood in construction and the concern about the environmental impact, engineers have worried about the rationalization of its use through the development of engineered products, seeking the improvement of the technical properties. In this study, the I-beams built with reforestation wood were used for concrete formwork purpose. Their mechanical properties and the connections between flanges and web used in its manufacture were evaluated by means of bending tests and shear in the glue line. These beams are commercially called H2O. The flanges were made from Pinus Oocarpa, the webs were made from laminated plywood, block plywood, and Pinus Oocarpa, and two types of adhesives were used: polyurethane and resorcinol-formaldehyde. The H2O beam configuration showed the best results compared to the minimum required by European standard EN 13377:2002 was with the flange made from lumber, glued with resorcinol-formaldehyde and the web of laminated plywood.

We study how attitudes to inheritance taxation are influenced by information about the role of inherited wealth in society. Using a randomized experiment in a register-linked Swedish survey, we find that informing individuals about the large aggregate importance of inherited wealth and its link to inequality of opportunity significantly increases the support for inheritance taxation. The effect is almost uniform across socio-economic groups and survives a battery of robustness tests. Changes in the perceived economic importance of inherited wealth and altered views on whether luck matters most for economic success appear to be the main driving factors behind the treatment effect. Our findings suggest that the low salience of inherited wealth could be one explanation behind the relatively marginalized role of inheritance taxation in developed economies. / Series: INEQ Working Paper Series

Investments with exit flexibility require decisions regarding both the investment and holding period. Because selling an investment often leads to taxable capital gains, which crucially depend on the duration of an investment, we investigate the impact of capital gains taxation on exit timing under different tax systems. We observed that capital gains taxation delays exit decisions but loses its decision relevance for very long holdings. Often the optimal exit time, which indicates the maximal present value of future cashflows, cannot be determined analytically. However, we identify the breakeven exit time that guarantees present values exceeding those of an immediate sale. While, after-taxes, an immediate sale is often optimal, long holding periods might also be attractive for investors depending on the degree of income and corporate tax integration. A classic corporate tax system often indicates holdings over more than 100 periods. By contrast, a shareholder relief system indicates the earliest breakeven exit time and thus the highest level of exit timing flexibility. Surprisingly, high retention rates are likely to accelerate sales under a classic corporate system. Additionally, the worst exit time, which should be avoided by investors, differs tremendously across tax systems. For an integrated tax system with full imputation, the worst time is reached earlier than under partial or non-integrated systems. These results could help to predict investors' behavior regarding changes in capital gains taxation and thus are of interest for both investors and tax policymakers. Furthermore, the results emphasize the need to control for the underlying tax system in cross-country empirical studies. (authors' abstract) / Series: WU International Taxation Research Paper Series

All over the world, firms and governments are increasingly concerned about the rise in tax complexity. To manage it and develop effective simplification measures, detailed information on the current drivers of complexity is required. However, research on this topic is scarce. This is surprising as the latest developments - for example, triggered by the BEPS project - give rise to the conjecture that complexity drivers may have changed, thus questioning the findings of prior studies. In this paper, we shed light on this issue and provide a global picture of the current drivers of tax complexity that multinational corporations face based on a survey of 221 highly experienced tax practitioners from 108 countries. Our results show that prior complexity drivers of the tax code are still relevant, with details and changes of tax regulations being the two most influential complexity drivers. We also find evidence for new relevant complexity drivers emerging from different areas of the tax framework, such as inconsistent decisions among tax officers (tax audits) or retroactively applied tax law amendments (tax enactment). Based on the responses of the practitioners, we develop a concept of tax complexity that distinguishes two pillars, tax code and tax framework complexity, and illustrates the various aspects that should be considered when assessing the complexity of a country's tax system. / Series: WU International Taxation Research Paper Series

This diploma work aims to evaluate the functional connection of the cogeneration unit with an internal combustion engine and an absorption heat pump to increase the heating effect of the cogeneration. The aim of this work is to design a functional system and evaluate it from the technical - economic terms. In the introduction of the theoretical work the applied cogeneration technologies used in combined heat and power production are presented. Then there is described the principle of heat pumps, their basic components and theoretical comparison of compression and absorption heat pumps. In the practical part of this work is for a specific application in the area Technická 2 proposed merger of the cogeneration unit with an internal combustion engine and an absorption heat pump, while detailed design parameters used in absorption heat circulation are set. At the end of this paper there are designed various heat exchangers of applied absorption heat pump. The final part of the work is devoted to technical - economic assessment of applied design. In this assestment three different types of heat pumps are compared: Absorption heat pump with working solution H2O-LiBR, absorption heat pump with working fluids NH3-H2O and compressor heat pump.

A simple integrated assessment framework that gives rules for the optimal carbon price, transition to the carbon-free era and stranded carbon assets is presented, which highlights the ethical, economic, geophysical and political drivers of optimal climate policy. For the ethics we discuss the role of intergenerational inequality aversion and the discount rate, where we show the importance of lower discount rates for appraisal of longer run benefit and of policy makers using lower discount rates than private agents. The economics depends on the costs and rates of technical progress in production of fossil fuel, its substitute renewable energies and sequestration. The geophysics depends on the permanent and transient components of atmospheric carbon and the relatively fast temperature response, and we allow for positive feedbacks. The politics stems from international free-rider problems in absence of a global climate deal. We show how results change if different assumptions are made about each of the drivers of climate policy. Our main objective is to offer an easy back-on-the-envelope analysis, which can be used for teaching and communication with policy makers. / Series: Ecological Economic Papers

A simple integrated assessment framework that gives rules for the optimal carbon price, transition to the carbon-free era and stranded carbon assets is presented, which highlights the ethical, economic, geophysical and political drivers of optimal climate policy. For the ethics we discuss the role of intergenerational inequality aversion and the discount rate, where we show the importance of lower discount rates for appraisal of longer run benefit and of policy makers using lower discount rates than private agents. The economics depends on the costs and rates of technical progress in production of fossil fuel, its substitute renewable energies and sequestration. The geophysics depends on the permanent and transient components of atmospheric carbon and the relatively fast temperature response, and we allow for positive feedbacks. The politics stems from international free-rider problems in absence of a global climate deal. We show how results change if different assumptions are made about each of the drivers of climate policy. Our main objective is to offer an easy back-on-the-envelope analysis, which can be used for teaching and communication with policy makers.