1. Expertises // 2013

    Partial Fiscal Decentralization and Sub-National Government Fiscal Discipline: Empirical Evidence from OECD Countries

    The fiscal inefficiencies associated with the soft budget constraint problem of sub-national governments have long been recognized as one of the critical pitfalls of fiscal federalism. Recent theoretical…

  2. ZEW Discussion Paper No. 13-048 // 2013

    A Look at Both Sides of the Coin: Investigating the Protective and the Disclosure Effect of Patenting

    We investigate the opposing impacts of two basic effects underlying the decision to patent: the protective and the disclosure effect. On the one hand, patents grant a temporary monopoly to an inventor, and thus,…

  3. ZEW Discussion Paper No. 13-047 // 2013

    Re-Assessing the Merits of Measuring Tax Evasions Through Surveys: Evidence from Serbian Firms

    While there is no doubt that tax evasion is widespread in developing countries, exact measures of its extent are difficult to obtain because, by definition, tax evasion is hidden. However, such estimates are…

  4. ZEW Discussion Paper No. 13-046 // 2013

    Measuring Fuel Poverty: General Considerations and Application to German Household Data

    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…

  5. ZEW Discussion Paper No. 13-045 // 2013

    Multinationals' Profit Response to Tax Differentials: Effect Size and Shifting Channels

    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.…

  6. ZEW Discussion Paper No. 13-044 // 2013

    Profit Shifting and "Aggressive" Tax Planning by Multinational Firms: Issues and Options for Reform

    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…

  7. ZEW Newsletter // 2013

    2013-07

    1. News
    2. Call for Papers
      • ZEW Workshop on Family Economics and Family Policy (November 27-28, 2013)
    3. Staff
      • Appointments
      • Visiting Researchers
    4. Press Releases
    5. Recent Publications
      • ZEWnews English Edition
      • ZEW policy brief
      • Financ…
  8. Refereed Journal // 2013

    Improving Educational Investments: a Welfare Analysis for Europe

    This paper analyses in a novel way how educational investments can improve human capital formation in Europe, based on a model of age-dependent skill formation featuring dynamic complementarities. Counterfactual…

  9. ZEW-Finanzmarktreport // 2013

    August 2013

    • ZEW-Konjunkturerwartungen etwas schwächer
    • EZB: Anstieg der Inflationsrate in Europa erwartet
    • USA: Einschätzung zur Konjunkturlage wieder im positiven Bereich
    • Japan: Konjunkturerwartungen verschlechtern sich leicht
    • G…
  10. ZEW Discussion Paper No. 13-043 // 2013

    The Strategic Use of Fuzziness in Patent Specifications

    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…