Suedekum J. (2006) Concentration and specialization trends in Germany since re-unification, Regional Studies 40, 861-873. This paper describes the development of regional specialization and geographical concentration in Germany from 1993 to 2001. It finds compelling evidence neither for a...

We develop a theory of a firm in an incomplete contracts environment which decides on the complexity, the organization, and the global scale of its production process. Specifically, the firm decides i) how many intermediate inputs are simultaneously combined to a final product, ii) if the...

S<sc>uedekum</sc> J., W<sc>olf</sc> K. and B<sc>lien</sc> U. Cultural diversity and local labour markets, <italic>Regional Studies</italic>. The diversity of nationalities of foreign workers in the German labour market has increased considerably over the period 1995-2006. This paper investigates the effects of this diversity for native...

Using novel data on the foundation dates of more than 10,000 American Census places, we show that older cities in the US tend to be larger than younger ones. To take this nexus between city age and city size into account, we introduce endogenous city creation into a dynamic economic model of an...

We develop a two-country model with monopolistic competition and heterogeneous firms where entrants pay a sunk cost and randomly draw their productivity level. Governments collect lump-sum taxes and subsidize these sunk entry costs for the domestic entrepreneurs. One motive for this policy,...

We investigate the causal impact of equity market liberalizations on sectoral export performance across 91 countries (1980–1997). The increased availability of external finance has boosted trade of industries that intensively use relationship-specific inputs, and lowered exports of industries...

Why are better educated and more risk-friendly persons more mobile across regions? To answer this question, we use micro-data on internal migrants from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) 2000–2006 and merge this information with a unique proxy for region-pair-specific cultural distances...

We analyze the effects of the unprecedented rise in trade between Germany and “the East” (China and Eastern Europe) in the period 1988–2008 on German local labor markets. Using detailed administrative data, we exploit the cross-regional variation in initial industry structures and use...

Using a regression analogue of the shift-share technique we address the explanatory power of various theories about regional differences in employment growth in eastern German districts from 1993 until 2001. We find that overly high regional wages are more important than differences in the...

There are wide and persistent disparities between regional unemployment rates in West Germany. Furthermore, regions with high unemployment tend to have relatively low effective wages and vice versa. Internal migration is driven by these spatial disparities. However, mobility will not work as an...