Latest Press Releases

A premature expansion of the EU towards the East entails economic risks. Particularly the accession of Eastern European states to the Euro Zone should not be done precipitately. This was the prevailing opinion at a conference on "EU Enlargement towards the East and Financial Markets" at the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) in Mannheim.

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Family members, primarily wives who help run their husbands' businesses, play an important role in the success of an enterprise. It is particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) which benefit from the paid or unpaid work of these women.

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Innovation activities of enterprises in manufacturing industry and mining in the New Länder hardly differ from those of enterprises in the old Länder. Any differences can be mainly attributed to the varying structure of company sizes.

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The productivity of businesses in Central and Eastern Europe has increased considerably over the past few years. According to a recent ZEW study, this development is related to the increased tendency of Central and Eastern European businesses to tap international capital markets to finance their investments.

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East German companies in the trade and traffic industries, the so-called distributive service providers, are significantly more innovative than companies in West Germany. The share of innovative companies as well as the share of innovation expenditures relative to turnover is larger among distributive service providers in East Germany than among distributive service providers in West Germany.

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Business-related service providers are on the rise. In the second quarter of 2000, the seasonally-adjusted rate of annual revenue growth in this sector was 5.4 per cent. Following a short-lived slow-down in the first quarter of 2000, growth regained its previous pace seen in the second half year of 1999. Particularly Eastern German business-related service providers, previously subject to a slow rate of growth, recovered well following a drop in revenue in the first quarter of 2000.

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At slightly more than 90 cents against the dollar, the euro is massively undervalued. Yet, the development of the euro exchange rate is still a matter of concern. An intervention by the European Central Bank, however, would be the wrong approach to prevent a possible further depreciation of the euro according to 400 financial market experts surveyed by ZEW on the current situation of the euro.

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Even though small and medium-sized enterprises with less than 500 employees (SMEs) represent the lion's share of companies in manufacturing industry that invests in new and improved products and production processes, their innovation success clearly falls behind that of large enterprises.

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Traditional instruments of active labour market policy such as job creation and further education schemes for the jobless that are promoted by the employment offices in order to reintegrate the participants in an employment relationship in the first labour market, are to a large extent ineffective.

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National and international perspectives of federalism

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