This paper empirically assesses whether the deployment and use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure at the national level affects trade flows within the European Union (EU) and between the EU and its main trading partners. The analysis tests the hypothesis that...

Based on representative data, the German Micro-Census, we provide an overview of the development of self-employment and entrepreneurship in Germany between 1991 and 2010, the first two decades after reunification. We investigate the socioeconomic background of these individuals, their education,...

This paper reviews the adjustments of the feed-in tariff for new solar photovoltaics (PV) installations in Germany. As PV system prices declined rapidly over the last years, the German government implemented automatic mechanisms to adjust the support level for new installations in response to...

The role and influence of the finance minister within the cabinet are discussed with increasing prominence in the recent theoretical literature on the political economy of budget deficits. It is generally assumed that the spending ministers can raise their reputation purely with new or more...

This study examines the long-memory properties of German energy price indices (specifically, import and export prices, as well as producer and consumer prices) for hard coal, lignite, mineral oil and natural gas adopting a fractional integration modelling framework. The analysis is undertaken...

The German potable water supply industry is regarded as being highly fragmented, thus inhibiting high potentials for efficiency improvements through consolidation. Focusing on a hypothetical restructuring of the industry, we apply Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to analyze the potential...

Starting with a comparative assessment of different welfare regimes and political economies from the perspective of gender awareness and "pro-women" policies, this paper identifies the determinants of cross-national variation in women's chances of being in a high-status occupation in twelve West...

Before 2004 South Africa was the dominant steam coal exporter to the European market. However a new market situation with rising global demand and prices makes room for a new entrant: Russia. The hypothesis investigated in this paper is that the three incumbent dominant firms located in South...

Tax competition for the mobile factor capital has led to a trend in many countries to levy lower taxes on interest income, often introducing differential taxation between interest and business income. In this study, we analyze the effect of such differential taxation on the debt ratio of firms....

In this paper, we suggest to estimate the home rents and prices in German regions/cities using the data from Internet ads offering the housing for rent and sale. Given the richness of information contained in the ads, we are able to construct the quality-adjusted rent and price indices using the...