In order to reduce unemployment, it is often recommended that industry-levelwage bargaining in Germany should be replaced by a more decentralized system.This paper provides a critical assessment of the current…

Reputation indexes of employment protection have proven popular constructs in studies of the covariation of labor market institutions and macroeconomic outcomes. Portugal occupies an unenviable rank order in…

This paper demonstrates that insiders can erect barriers to entry and skim rents by sinking costs in human capital when labour markets are otherwise perfectlycontestable. The sunk costs nature of human capital…

This paper provides a labour supply explanation to the observation thatin Germany employment changes are asymmetric during the business cycle.Employment increases are slower, because the reservation wage of…

This econometric study deals with the question as to what extent apprentices after successfully completing their training stay with the firm where they have received their training and, if so, how long that job…

The paper investigates the business cycle relationships between the EU-15, the EU-11, as well as the EU-core countries for the period 1971 to 1997. Emphasis is put on the question whether there is a…

In the paper we analyze the convergence process of the West German Laender from 1970 to 1995 using descriptive tools as well as panel estimation methods. Although there have been some winners in this process,…

This study deals with the determinants of factor demand in 27 industries of the manufacturing sector during the period 1978 to 1990. Using a quadratic cost function, six production factors are distinguished:…

Climate technology becomes more and more relevant in international environmental policy negotiations. At the Kyoto conference binding emission reduction targets have been established for several regions of the…

The book provides an integrated analysis of the implications for the energy system from adapting to meet climate change targets and analyses the role of improving energy technologies for the world and the EU…