Ein wesentlicher Grund für die mangelnde Wettbewerbsfähigkeit der neuen Bundesländer wird in der zu hohen Belastung der Unternehmen mit Lohnkosten gesehen. Wie aussagefähig ist eine bloße Betrachtung der Lohnstückkosten? Welchen Einfluß haben Produktionsstruktur und Kapitalausstattung?

"This paper studies optimal investment policies when the production function depends on capital of various vintages. In such an environment it is natural to ask whether the firm will invest in old-vintage capital at all. In this paper I derive such a condition. Predictably, investment in old...

We employ the EU KLEMS database to estimate the real rate of return to capital in 14 countries (11 in the EU, three outside the EU) in 10 branches of the market economy plus the market economy as a whole. Our measure of capital is an aggregate over seven types of asset: three ICT assets...

This paper concentrates on the golden rule of public finance. It reviews the main advantages and disadvantages of the potential implementation of this rule in the European Union. Often the question of the productivity of public capital is at the heart of the rule's discussions. As this issue has...