ZEW Discussion Papers

The recent shift towards working from home (WFH) has far-reaching implications for social and economic outcomes. While firms are gatekeepers for the ongoing diffusion of flexible work arrangements, there is…

Technology policy is the most widespread form of climate policy and is often preferred over seemingly efficient carbon pricing. We propose a new explanation for this observation: gains that predominantly accrue…

Firm ownership is a major determinant for the economic performance of firms, and emissions of pollutants are often by-products of industrial production. We investigate the impact of ownership on pollutant…

Firms can use different sources of external knowledge for developing and implementing innovations. Some knowledge is provided deliberately by the source and constitutes intended knowledge spillovers, e.g.,…

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected firms in many economies. Exploiting treatment heterogeneity, we use a difference-in-differences design to causally identify the shortrun impact of COVID-19 on innovation…

Much economic analysis derives policy recommendations based on social welfare criteria intended to model the preferences of a policy maker. Yet, little is known about policy maker’s normative views in a way…

This paper examines how municipal taxes respond to the local impact of a labor market shock. The analysis exploits a commuting policy that liberalized cross-border labor markets between Switzerland and the EU.…

The Covid-19 pandemic has sparked hope that firm digitalisation will result in long-lasting reductions in mobility and related carbon emissions via the use of working from home and online services. In this…

This study examines whether staged project management is beneficial or harmful for making product innovations. Using a unique firm survey for Japan, we find that firms that employed staged project management had…