ZEW Discussion Papers

This paper analyses the causal effects of weaker dismissal protection on the incidence of long-term sickness (> six weeks). We exploit a German policy change, which shifted the threshold exempting small…

Non-pecuniary incentives motivated by insights from psychology (“nudges”) have been shown to be effective tools to change behavior in a variety of fields. An often unanswered question relevant for public policy…

We examine whether a disclosure mandate for greenhouse gas emissions creates stakeholder pressure for firms to subsequently reduce their emissions. For UK-incorporated listed firms such a mandate was adopted in…

We analyze the extent to which private defensive litigation insurance deters patent assertion by non-practicing entities (NPEs). We study the effect that a patent-specific defensive insurance product, offered by…

The following paper assesses whether current policy environments are appropriate for the emergence of cloud computing technology. In particular, this research uses firm-level data for Germany and the UK to…

This report provides an overview on the economics of attention intermediaries. It addresses the following questions: What are the economics of attention intermediaries? For competition policy, how should markets…

The rapid spread of COVID-19 forced policy-makers to swiftly find solutions to reduce infection rates and keep mortality as low as possible. Empirical analyses on the effectiveness of control measures are hereby…

Despite the importance of business creation for the economy and a relevant share of new firms being started out of unemployment, most research has focused on analyzing the effect of unemployment insurance (UI)…