ZEW Discussion Papers

This paper focuses on the pre-establishment period of start-ups in industrial districts. The industrial architecture is what I call a "rationed agglomeration" in which some entrepreneurs gather around an…

Globalization has provided many companies with new opportunities for growth and efficiency. This requires them to operate successfully across cultural and social borders. These can be stumbling blocks to…

Technological change is often hypothesized as one of the main drivers of merger activities. This paper analyzes the role of technology in mergers and acquisitions (M&As) at the firm level. Based on a newly…

This paper analyzes the role of Thin-Capitalization rules for capital structure choice and investment decisions of multinationals. A theoretical analysis shows that the imposition of such rules tends to affect…

This paper analyzes the impact of taxes and lending conditions on the financial structure of multinationals' foreign affiliates. The empirical analysis employs a large panel of affiliates of German…

Union density in Germany has declined remarkably during the last two decades. We estimate socio-economic and workplace-related determinants of union membership in East and West Germany using data from the German…

Short-term training measures are the most important intervention of German active labor market policy in terms of persons promoted. However, evidence on the impacts of programs is missing. This study analyzes…

This paper advocates the cautious and constitutional evolution of existing basic income schemes ("unemployment benefit II") and Targeted Negative Income Tax (TNIT = "Einstiegsgeld") into a means-tested…

In this paper we empirically test whether public R&D subsidies crowd out private R&D investment in Flanders and Germany, using firm level data from the Flemish and German part of the Community Innovation survey…