ZEW Discussion Papers

Almost all papers on the motivation of German firms to train apprentices take as a stylised fact that training firms have to incur net costs. This notion stems practically from one source only - a series of…

Each year over three thousand R&D projects in more than two thousand firms received public grants from the German Federal Government. However, the number of subsidized firms does not reveal, whether it is always…

The recent years have been marked by massive price movements at the energy markets. Oil prices at the international energy exchanges have been rising strongly, and record high prices for oil and gas have been…

Last year's assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reemphasized the urgency of combating global warming. As the primary causes of climate change the report highlights fossil fuel use…

Motivated by substantial cross-sectional variation in banks’ leverage, which stands in contrast to the conventional wisdom that capital regulation is the main driver of banks’ capital structures, this paper…

The vitality and stability of our democracy - as well as the economy - eventually depend on the social permeability of our society. (Horst Köhler, German Federal President, 29.12.2007, own translation) This…

Uncertainty is intrinsic to research and development (R&D) and has a fundamental influence on the decision to invest in such activities. Real options theoretical models with irreversible investment are a…

Collective bargaining in Germany takes place either at the sectoral level or at the firm level; collective bargaining coverage is much higher than union density; and not all employees in a covered firm are…

Angesichts der persistent hohen Arbeitslosigkeit steht die Notwendigkeit von Arbeitsmarktreformen seit Jahren außer Frage. Tatsache ist, dass in vielen Bereichen der Arbeitsmarktpolitik neben den vielbeachteten…