In an empirical study of a large German cement cartel, ZEW researchers examined the effects of overt collusion on consumers and economic welfare. Kai Hüschelrath, the head of ZEW's new "Competition and Regulation" research group, explains the most important findings.
Europe should address the crisis of confidence at the European bond
markets through a direct equalisation of interest rates. Such a solution,
as suggested by Friedrich Heinemann, rules out the collective liability of
Eurobonds and is affordable even if applied to Spain and Italy.
More and more companies are shifting to cloud computing, where services such as information storage, computing capacity, and software applications do not depend on in-house data centres. With cloud computing, companies can outsource data storage and other services to cloud providers. ZEW researcher Dr. Jörg Ohnemus talks about the influence of cloud computing on business and work.
The chaotic situation following the most recent parliamentary elections in Greece make the country’s departure from the eurozone appear more likely. In this interview, ZEW's President Wolfgang Franz shares his views on the future of the euro.
Middle class
| Foreign workers
| Social integration
Various measures aimed at encouraging direly needed skilled workers to immigrate to Germany have not been successful to date. Dr. Holger Bonin, a labour market expert at ZEW, explains what firms can do to attract foreign workers without having to rely on government programmes.
The EU's heads of state have agreed on a fiscal stability treaty for Europe. One aim of the treaty is to stem the excessive public debt levels in many eurozone countries. We spoke with Friedrich Heinemann, the head of the Research Department of "Corporate Taxation and Public Finance" at ZEW, about the extent to which the treaty will encourage sound fiscal policy.
Founded in January 2012, a new research group at ZEW is devoted to studying questions related to competition and regulation. In this interview, the head of the research group, Professor Kai Hüschelrath, explains the group’s specific goals and mission.
Germany is often criticised for producing too few university graduates compared with other countries. Most recently, the OECD warned that too few young people are pursuing university education in this country. Yet Friedhelm Pfeiffer, an educational economist at the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW), considers this focus to be too narrow.
Rating agencies are considered to be partially responsible for the financial crisis, as they awarded excessively positive ratings to highly speculative securities for too long. More recently, rating agencies have come under fire for their role in the European debt crisis, since debt rating downgrades issued by rating agencies have placed various countries under additional strain. The EU Commission recently presented its recommendations for the reform of rating agency regulation. In this Q&A session, Prof. Dr. Michael Schröder evaluates the proposed regulatory changes.
ZEW's International Finance and Financial Management department regularly investigates questions concerning international real estate markets. Past topics of investigation include the dynamic interactions between real estate and capital markets, as well as real estate investment trusts (REITs) as an independent investment class. An interview with Prof. Dr. Felix Schindler, who is an expert on such issues, provides us with a survey of current conditions in the German real estate market.
