ZEW Discussion Papers

Child labour has always been one of the core concerns of the International Labour Organisation (ILO). In this paper, we investigate whether ILO conventions have contributed to reducing the scale of the problem.…

Recent research suggests that the power law is one of the most universal laws in nature and it also seems to work quite fine in economics and finance. In this paper we show that the power law explains extremely…

This paper studies the impact of equity considerations on the stability of international agreements between heterogeneous countries. We show that allowing countries to finance abatement projects in developing…

As the innovation process of pharmaceuticals is a long, risky and very costly business, economists typically emphasise lack of profit incentives and small market size as the most important obstacles to…

We investigate the importance of “what”-flexibility on top of “where”- and “when”-flexibility for alternative emission control schemes that prescribe long-term temperature targets and eventually impose…

This paper analyses the relationship between education, gender and earnings in France and Germany. The model chosen here enables to estimate the impact of education not only on the expected earnings level but…

In this paper we assess the impact of flexible work time schedules on firm efficiency using representative establishment data for Germany. Following the approach by Battese and Coelli (1995), we estimate a…

This paper conducts a spatial econometric analysis of the determinants of regional specialisation patterns. Spatial autocorrelation is present, but is mostly due to spatial error autocorrelation. Spatial…

This study analyses relative sectoral specialisation of EU regions on the basis of investment and employment patterns. Controlling for heteroscedasticity and potential endogeneity in the econometric analysis, we…