ZEW Discussion Papers

The performance of young and newly founded firms depends largely to the human capital of the firm owner. The entrepreneur is therefore one of the main success factors for the firm. Yet entrepreneurs differ…

In April 2002 German government introduced job placement vouchers as a new instrument of active labour market policy to foster the transition of unemployed to jobs. This paper investigates the demand, the…

For creditor countries on the periphery of the dollar standard such as China with current account surpluses, foreign mercantile pressure to appreciate their currencies and become more flexible is misplaced.…

On the basis of a theoretical model, we argue that higher aggregate unemployment affects individual returns to education. We therefore include aggregate unemployment and an interaction term between unemployment…

Using register data from the IAB employment sample, this paper studies the wage structure in the German labor market throughout the years 1992{2001. Wage dispersion has generally been rising. The increase was…

In the tax policy debate, differentiation of value-added taxes is often justified by distributional concerns. Our quantitative analysis for Germany indicates that such concerns are misplaced. We find that the…

The innovation activities of foreign subsidiaries have been identified as an important source of competitive advantage for multinational corporations. The success of these engagements depends heavily on tapping…

We estimate peer effects for fourth graders in six European countries. The identification relies on variation across classes within schools. We argue that classes within primary schools are formed roughly…

In recent years, coinciding with the discussion led in many OECD countries, Germany has started to contract out placement services for the unemployed to private agencies. Whereas in the Netherlands and Australia…