ZEW Discussion Papers

We provide a comprehensive quantitative assessment of cartels and the related cartel enforcement process in the European Union (EU) from 2001 to 2015. In a first step, we present a detailed characterization of…

Environmental policies may have important consequences for firms’ competitiveness or profitability. However, the empirical literature shows that hardly any statistically significant effects on firms can be…

This paper tests a number of hypotheses on the use and effectiveness of patents and trade secrets designed to protect innovation. While previous studies have often considered patents and trade secrets as…

Decisions taken at the start of one’s career have long-term consequences and one important decision graduates have to make is whether to be regionally mobile when looking for the first job. We investigate…

How can retirement savings be increased? We explore a unique policy change in the context of the German pension system to study this question. As of 2004, the German pension authority started to send out annual…

In this paper we consider trends in the distribution of player talent across association football clubs over time. Player talent is the most important prerequisite for team success in professional sports leagues…

Executive Summary

1. Substitut-OTT-Dienste, d.h. solche Dienste, die funktional mit klassischen elektronischen Kommunikationsdiensten vergleichbar sind, müssen aus Gründen der Wettbewerbsgleichheit und der…

We provide a structured overview of the quantitative literature on the economic impacts of telecommunications networks and broadband internet. Differentiating between wireline and wireless technologies as well…

We investigate the characteristics of cities gaining access to the German interurban bus network in the first two years following the deregulation of the industry in January 2013. Applying both parametric and…