ZEW Discussion Papers

Fuel poverty may become an increasingly severe problem in developed countries in cases when real prices for fossil fuels increase at high rates or when real energy prices increase due to policies for greenhouse…

The public debate on tax base erosion by multinational enterprises (MNEs) has been stirred up by strikingly low effective tax rates (ETRs) of some very prominent US-American information technology companies.…

Google, Apple and other highly profitable multinationals are able to drastically reduce their tax burden on worldwide income by shifting profits from high- to low-tax countries. Reports on these tax avoidance…

For providing protection for intellectual property, patent law requires the comprehensive description of the invention, its making and using. The goal of this disclosure requirement is to provide newly generated…

Several studies document an important relationship between firms' productivity and their internationalisation strategy. Recent evidence suggests that trade liberalization might imply firm growth increasing…

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…