Emerging countries in many cases are more crisis-prone than highly developed industrialized countries. This is in many cases due to a weak or volatile financial sector. The best policy to strengthen crisis resistance is the building up of a sound financial position. A sound financial position of...

Nachdem die chinesische Volkswirtschaft im Verlauf der 1990er Jahre zur Werkbank der Welt” aufgestiegen war, ist angesichts massiv ausgeweiteter F&E Budgets in den letzten Jahren die Frage aufgekommen, inwiefern China in naher Zukunft nicht auch zur Wissensfabrik der Welt aufsteigen könnte....

This EU supported Specific Targeted Research Project (STREP) had been conducted by a European Consortium composed of eight research institutions. Ifo's part within this larger programme was (a) to analyse the fiscal effects of privatization and (b) to assess the valuation of privatization...

This paper proposes a macro-prudential financial soundness analysis that can be used by most developing and transformation countries with or without crisis experience as well as by developed countries with limited data. The objective is to detect economic and financial sector vulnerability,...

Ausgelöst durch die drei säkularen Ereignisse werden die regionalen Karten in Europa neu gemischt. Der Wettbewerb unter den Standorten nimmt zu. Die Städte dürfen sich nicht mit der Ansiedlung neuer Unternehmen zufrieden geben, sondern müssen für die Betriebe auch in der Folge ein...

Die Studie untersucht die wirtschaftliche Stärke einzelner deutscher und europäischer Wirtschaftsregionen. Im Vergleich mit den beiden überdurchschnittlich starken Wirtschaftsräumen Oberbayern mit Schwerpunkt München und Stuttgart werden die Standortfaktoren der Regionnen in der Bewertung...

This study identifies the shadow market area of air pollutants based on the Gaussian plume model. Since pollutants are dispersed by wind, transport costs are irrelevant in its formation. Pollutant distribution on the ground level has an asymmetric bell-shape in the wind direction. Apart from the...

VAT evasion caused by the growth of carousel fraud has recently led to significant VAT revenue losses in the EU. Carousel fraud works such that intra-EU firms repeatedly carry out cross-border supply and purchase of goods and services, leading to the fraudulent retention of revenue. This study...

Intergovernmental transfers can be either conditional or unconditional with regard to the autonomy of local governments in spending such financial means. Although fiscal decentralisation has recently been quite pronounced in Eastern European transition countries, the dominance of a purpose- and...

The recent process of political and economic transformation in eastern European countries has not only contributed to the decentralisation of political structure but also significantly enhanced the fiscal autonomy of municipalities in these countries. In this context many similar types of public...