The interdisciplinary RG, composed of economists, sociologists and political scientists, focuses on the closely connected areas of national and European public finance and fiscal policy including reform efforts at the national and EU level, labour market and social policy and European governance with a specific interest in questions of democratic legitimacy.

Methodologically, the RG has a broad expertise in both macro- and micro-data and simulation models. The latter include the CGE- model TaxLab (macroeconomic impacts of policy reforms related to the labour market, the pension system and taxes covering Austria and 13 other countries of the EU) as well as three microsimulation models, ILSA (labour supply characteristics), IREA (pensions and retirement behaviour) and ITABENA (tax and benefits).