It seems to be widely acknowledged that Germany will face a shortage of skilled workers within no more than a few years. However, the extent of the current and future skilled worker shortage is still up for debate among experts. The disagreement begins with the choice of adequate scarcity...

A key component of the coalition agreement between the CDU/CSU and SPD signed on November 27 is the adoption of a minimum wage for Germany. Under the agreement, a statutory minimum wage of EUR8.50 per hour will be introduced across the country starting in 2017. Pushed as a make-or-break issue by...

In response to an imbalance between the demand and supply of permits within the European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS), the European Commission has proposed the introduction of a Market Stability Reserve (MSR). The MSR represents a quantity based automatic adjustment mechanism, which...

This paper investigates the empirical relevance of different unemployment theories in three major economies, namely the UK, the US and Japan, by estimating the degree of dependence in the unemployment series. Both univariate and multivariate long memory methods are used. The results vary...

Local business profits respond to local business tax (LBT) rates that vary across municipalities. We estimate that a one percent increase in the LBT rate decreases the LBT base by 0.45 percent, based on the universe of German LBT return files, which include corporations and unincorporated...

This paper analyses the effects of newspaper coverage of macro news on the spread between the yield on the 10-year German Bund and on sovereign bonds in eight countries belonging to the euro area (Belgium, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain) using daily data for...

The European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS) has been implemented to provide a common climate policy instrument across European Union countries, to contribute to a credible investment perspective for low-carbon investors and support further European integration of energy markets. Thus the...