ZEW Discussion Papers

Access to external financing is of high importance to companies for the financing of fixed investments. Investment in fixed assets occurs in irregular intervals and requires relatively large amounts of…

Declining labour shares in a large number of countries, particularly in continental Europe, have renewed the academic and political debate about the factors which explain these downward trends. While the share…

The run-up to the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) of the EU has been dominated by tension between a big aspiration and a big concern. The aspiration was that a common currency would reinvigorate the single…

This paper attempts to shed light on the pricing behaviour of firms or sellers in market places with price competition. In particular, it aims at testing the mechanism that lies at the heart of one of the most…

Labor market integration of immigrants provides a difficulty in many countries. As a consequence, immigrants are substantially overrepresented in welfare systems. Despite forming a substantial share of all…

Changes to the degree of a tax system’s progressiveness are a key element of many introduced or considered tax reforms. Especially, flat tax reforms have received increasing attention resulting from their…

The coalition agreement of the new German government includes the plan to introduce tax incentives for research and development. Several different types of tax incentives are currently under discussion,…

The Bologna Process was introduced in the member states of the European Union in 1999 with the aim of creating a European Higher Education Area. The main component of the reform was the replacement of the…

Highly progressive tax systems entail disincentives for private economic activity and, thus, may hamper potential growth. Nevertheless, attempts to introduce alternative tax schedules regularly encounter…