Competition in the waste management sector is very weak. Especially in the fields of domestic waste management, mostly local authority companies financed by fees are solely responsible for disposal. Furthermore, current tendencies toward remunicipalisation strengthen the role of local...

Abstract It has been a policy proposal since long to vertically separate transport and infrastructure in Germany’s railway sector. The proposal received new momentum, when selling the transport subsidiaries of Deutsche Bahn AG to the public was discussed in 2008 / 2009. While vertical...

Im Dezember 2008 hat der Bundestag ein Gesetz zur Krankenhausfinanzierung verabschiedet. Ziel ist es dabei, die Investitionsförderung der Länder für Krankenhäuser zurückzuschrauben und die Krankenhausfinanzierung aus einer Hand (Monistik) in die Wege zu leiten. Was sind die Nachteile einer...

R&D encompasses plenty of activities which are usually summarized under the terms of basic research, applied research and development. Although basic research is often associated with low appropriability it provides the fundamental basis for subsequent applied research and development....

Tomatoes or tomato pickers? Free trade and migration between Mexico and the United States

Many studies investigate the relationship between R&D and patents applying knowledge production functions. Using aggregated R&D may underestimate the productivity of 'R', as mainly 'R' but not 'D' leads to patents. Disaggregating 'R' and 'D' shows a significant premium of 'R' towards patenting.