News

Tax-oriented Valuation On 22 June 2010, ZEW and the University of Mannheim welcomed 100 guests to this year’s Mannheim Corporate Tax Day. Held on an annual basis, this event provides a forum for prominent speakers from the worlds of science, business and financial administration to address current issues pertaining to national and international corporate taxation. The focus of this year’s conference was on issues of practical relevance relating to tax-oriented valuation.

Read more

Professor Felix Schindler, a researcher in the ZEW Research Department “International Finance and Financial Management”, has been appointed as a junior professor at the Steinbeis Hochschule in Berlin. Professor Schindler will be working at the Centre for Finance, Banking and Real Estate in the School of Management and Innovation. Schindler’s research interests are in the areas of real estate as capital investment and real estate financing.

Read more

The single currency is under immense pressure from the various debt problems in a number of Eurozone countries, having experienced a considerable drop in value compared to the US dollar in recent weeks. Professor Wolfgang Franz, head of the ZEW Research Group “Growth and Business Cycles“, discusses the impact of a weak euro on the German economy and calls for the Eurozone to undertake strict consolidation measures to stabilise the currency. Professor Wolfgang Franz gained his doctorate in economics from the University of Mannheim. After being granted the title of professor in 1981, he accepted a post at the University of Mainz. This was followed by positions at the University of Stuttgart, starting in 1984, and at the University of Konstanz from 1989. Since 1997, Franz has been both president of ZEW in Mannheim and an economics professor at the University of Mannheim. In addition, he has led the ZEW Research Group “Growth and Business Cycles” since September 2007. His research primarily focuses on macroeconomics, labour market research and empirical economic research. Since 2003, Franz has been a member of the German Council of Economic Experts, of which he has served as chair since March 2009.

Read more

The finance minister for Baden-Württemberg, Willi Stächele MdL, recently conducted a fact-finding visit at ZEW. He was accompanied by State Secretary Dr. Stefan Scheffold, Ministerial Director Dr. Gisela Meister-Scheufelen as well as several other high-ranking ministry officials.

Read more

According to some critics, the austerity package passed on 7 June 2010 is a “social impertinence”, involving unrivalled “orgies of austerity at the expense of the poor”. The outrage campaigns and protest marches can now go ahead as planned in their attempts to influence the public’s sense of injustice – a tactic that has been fairly successful thus far. But this raises a number of questions, namely: Where is this supposed social imbalance in the austerity package? And how do the alternative saving measures suggested by the aforementioned critics compare?

Read more

Jin Lei was a visiting researcher in the ZEW Research Department “International Finance and Financial Management” from 2 to 30 July 2010. At the time of his visit, Mr Lei was a research fellow at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada where his doctoral advisor was Professor Richard Deaves, who has collaborated intensively with ZEW over the years. Mr Lei’s research interests include expectation formation and empirical financial market analysis. During his research visit at ZEW, Lei worked on a joint research project with the head of the research department PD Dr. Michael Schröder analysing risk premiums and expectation formation on the German stock market.

Read more

Unlike regular investments, sustainable investments dispersed across the market did not yield any worse results, even during the recent financial crisis from 2007 to 2009. This is the finding of a study carried out by the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) on behalf of the German Federal Environmental Foundation (DBU).

Read more

On 22 June 2010, ZEW and the University of Mannheim welcomed 100 guests to this year’s Mannheim Corporate Tax Day. Once again, the institute had the pleasure of welcoming renowned speakers from the worlds of economics, business and financial administration.

Read more

Rajeev K. Goel was a visiting researcher in ZEW's Research Department “Industrial Economics and International Management” from 14 June to 14 July 2010. He is a professor of economics at Illinois State University, where he conducts research in the fields of industrial economics, the economics of regulation and applied econometrics. His research at ZEW focused particularly on the economics of technological change.

Read more

The Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) welcomes the submission of project proposals for its new research programme "Strengthening Efficiency and Competitiveness in the European Knowledge Economies" (SEEK). The programme seeks to bolster international cooperation between researchers of all economic disciplines. The state government of Baden-Wuerttemberg is financing a landmark project at ZEW in Mannheim to strengthen the economic top level research. In 2010 and 2011, the research programme will be financed with a total of three million euro. For each project, the budget requested may be up to 200,000 euros for a duration of 12 to 18 months. Projects must be carried out in close cooperation between ZEW researchers and international project partner(s). The deadline for project proposals is July 31, 2010.

Read more