ZEW Discussion Papers

Economics and innovation scholars have long recognized the potential of public procurement to trigger innovation. To what extent has this potential been realized so far? What can be done to improve the…

We analyze the data collection strategies of 65,000 developers in the market for mobile applications and track 300,000 applications over four years. Many apps belong to developers with multiple apps. This fact…

We investigate whether appointing a middle management level   affects startups’ innovation  performance. Additional hierarchical levels are often   suspected to restrict innovative activities.  However,…

I examine the role of intermediaries on the world's largest peer-to-peer online lending platform. This marketplace as well as other recently opened lending websites allow people to auction microcredit over the…

We analyze the drivers and barriers that influence investments increasing the energy efficiency of firms' production processes or buildings in the German manufacturing sector based on microdata. In particular,…

From a current perspective the Paris Agreement is not sufficient to limit the global mean temperature below 2°C above pre-industrial level as intended. The Agreement stipulates that parties review, compare and…

Matching schemes, where a party matches the contribution of others, reduce the effective price of a good and aim to foster its demand. We review the empirical literature on the effectiveness of these schemes in…

European banks are exposed to a substantial amount of risky sovereign debt. The “missing bank capital” resulting from the zero-risk weight exemption for European banks for European sovereign debt amplifies the…

Increasing energy efficiency is one of the main goals in current German energy and climate policies. We study the determinants of energy efficiency in the German manufacturing sector based on official firm-level…