ZEW Discussion Papers

Social software applications are increasingly applied in firms and particularly support communication, cooperation and information sharing between individuals. They comprise applications like wikis, blogs and…

The recent economic crisis has resulted in a dramatic deterioration of economic growth and labour market performance in various industrialized countries. There is a widespread view that economies under pressure…

Do higher corporate taxes reduce wages? While this question has been discussed extensively in economics, compelling empirical evidence is still scarce. In this discussion paper, we exploit the specific…

Human capital investments of firms impose the risk that outsider firms poach trained worker because, in contrast to real capital investments, firms do not have the right of disposal for human capital…

Cartel agreements between firms typically aim at reducing competition and increasing joint profits. Due to the fact that such agreements regularly cause substantial economic harm in the form of, e.g., elevated…

Using bidding data on a firm-level basis which we received from the German Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur) we analyze a drastic price increase in the market for negative secondary reserve power in…

The budgetary problems of many governments which emerged as a consequence of the economic and financial crisis are on top of the political agenda. Simultaneously to the increasing debt levels, investors demanded…

There is an intensive debate among academics as well as policymakers on which of the two options of unbundling, either ownership unbundling or non-discriminatory third party access, is more appropriate to foster…

Parental investments are crucial for the children’s skill development, especially in the early years of the life-cycle. In this paper, we examine how parental health, which may cause variation in investments to…