ZEW Discussion Papers

The last couple of years have seen an increasing interest in the evaluation of competition policy both in practice and in academia. With respect to the former, the Office of Fair Trading in the UK, for instance,…

Economic theory suggests that financing constraints may occur due to capital market imperfections. These particularly affect investments in innovation projects as such projects are typically characterized by a…

The new growth theory considers knowledge to be a decisive engine of economic growth. More precisely, knowledge is not used solely to the benefit of its originator, but generates positive side effects also for…

The law on labour market reforms has severely limited the maximum benefit period for the elderly; with cuts of up to 14 months, depending on the age group. Our paper examines this natural experiment and shows…

The broad literature focussing on the effects of globalization and strategic interactions on corporate tax competition has widely neglected an impact of political factors. In this paper, we analyse the effects…

Traditional economic theory assumes individuals to be entirely rational actors who are solely maximizing their own utility. However, various experimental studies show that individuals do not necessarily conform…

Measuring unobserved individual ability is a core challenge of the analysis of questions related to human capital development. For that purpose, concepts from psychology, predominantly measures of IQ have become…

Migrant children are lagging behind in terms of educational performance in many industrialised countries. The relatively low educational level of their parents as well as language difficulties are well-known…