This paper is one of the first to show systematically that the motives for sovereign lending to African countries differed considerably between China and Western countries during the last two decades. While Chinese lending mainly served its own economic or geopolitical objectives, which is...

China has become a major player in sovereign lending towards Africa during the past two decades but has recently been faced with increasing defaults. A new African debt crisis is looming. • Differences in the motives of sovereign lending between China and Western creditor countries contribute...

Die geplante Novellierung der HWO wird die sehr hohen Marktzutrittsschranken im Handwerksgewerbe spürbar senken. Sie ist notwendig, weil sie dazu beitragen wird, die verkrusteten Strukturen im Handwerksgewerbe aufzubrechen und damit zumindest eines der vielen strukturellen Defizite, an denen...

Based on a standard idea-based model of endogenous growth we test the hypothesis that regional innovative activity is path-dependent, and investigate the geographical scope of knowledge spillovers. Using data for West-German regions, two alternative indicators of the stock of knowledge are...

We present empirical evidence suggesting that technological progress in the digital age will be biased not only with respect to skills acquired through education but also with respect to noncognitive skills (personality). We measure the direction of technological change by estimated future...