Foreign direct investment - the major driving force of globalization - is increasingly dominated by merger and acquisition activities. Since the mid-1990s, an unprecedented wave of foreign direct investment and a corresponding wave of cross-border mergers and acquisitions can be observed. As a...

This paper presents some ideas about determinants of merger waves and some evidence on their effect on profitability and employment. A brief survey of previous merger waves and an analysis of the recent one give support to the hypothesis that sectoral shocks are at the root of merger waves....

The economic analysis of technology policy suggests non-distortive public support of private innovative activities with a stress upon basic rather than applied research. Actual technology policy in Germany is marked by a high degree of sectoral selectivity which results from the dominance of...

The paper explores the basic features of structural change towards services for OECD countries in general and for Germany in particular. The determinants of sectoral shifts are analytically decomposed into the demandbias and the productivity-bias. The demand-bias, which prevails in all OECD...