ZEW Discussion Papers

According to the Schumpeterian view, intellectual property (IP) protection policy and antitrust policy might affect firms' incentives to innovate in opposite directions. The former policy gives monopoly rights…

In 2006, on average 43% of the firms in the EU-15 practiced IT outsourcing (ITO). The determinants of ITO as well as firms' incentives to source out non-core activities have been examined extensively. As…

Final goods and some services are nowadays often not only produced at one location but their value creation is organised within global value chains: Many firms source inputs, either intermediate goods or…

It is today widely acknowledged that innovation constitutes one of the most important drivers of economic growth and competitiveness (see e.g. Solow, 1957; Griliches, 1979, 1992; Hall, 1996). Private sector…

This article discusses the relation between different concepts of investment in firms. In addition to the traditional notion of investment which focuses on investment in fixed assets, the concepts of…

With about 600 cases per year Germany is the most active country in Europe when it comes to patent litigation trials. These trials, usually initiated by a patentee suspecting the infringement of his patent by…

In 1997, a minimum wage has been introduced in the German roofing sector which has been regularly increased since then. As a result, the share of workers for whom the minimum wage is binding increased…

There is a long‐standing debate in economics about whether governments should engage in Keynesian‐style countercyclical fiscal policy. During the recent global financial crisis, this debate has gained new…

Almost all academic institutions regularly use graduate surveys in order to assess the determinants of academic success and labour market chances of their graduates. This paper shows how the information drawn…