ZEW Discussion Papers

In 2009, Germany has introduced a new debt brake which aims at constraining the buildup of new public debt for both the federal and the state level. While the new rule is enshrined in the federal constitution,…

This paper examines the local impacts of renewable energy carrier promotion by the German feed-in tariffs scheme "Erneuerbare-Energien-Gesetz" for the German State of Baden-Wuerttemberg by using an…

As shown by R. Hahn (1984), free allocation to a firm with market power equal to the amount of permits the firm uses in a competitive equilibrium can prevent welfare losses under market power. In this paper an…

In this paper, the role of intermediaries, e.g. banks, under quantity based regulation with tradeable permits is examined. An example is the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS). In the EU ETS, the total…

Despite the high CO2 emission intensity of fossil and especially coal fired energy production, these energy carriers will play an important role during the coming decades. In Germany, nuclear energy has to be…

In contrast to residential electricity markets in Germany, the entry of newcomers in residential natural gas markets is not frequently observed. Newcomers might face difficulties in purchasing gas on the…

Most minimum wage research focuses on the average employment effect that minimum wages exert on workers with a binding minimum wage, i.e. workers whose wage has to be raised in order to comply with the minimum…

A generally binding minimum wage was introduced in the roofing sector in 1997 and has been renewed and raised several times since then; in 2011, the roofer minimum wage amounted to 11.80€. The roofing sector…

In times of demographic ageing and potential skills shortages, employment of older workers becomes an increasingly important topic. During the last centuries, firms in developed countries have actively…