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...

The Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) has been widely used to analyze climate change impacts, vulnerability and adaptation. The storylines behind these scenarios outline alternative development pathways, which have been the base for climate research and other studies at global,...

This paper documents the dynamic properties of the current account, trade balance and international capital flows. For this purpose, two approaches are taken: probit and a nonparametric estimation. The probabilistic approach shows that, in general, deficits and net inflows tend to be more...

Locational competition means that the immobile factors of production in a country compete for internationally mobile capital and technology. Locational competition influences the restraint set of national players and redefines their opportunity costs. Thus, the bargaining position of the trade...

The paper analyzes how the next financial crisis can be prevented and which role the IMF should play. The paper distinguishes between the improvement of existing instruments and solving the moral hazard problem. Both issues are interrelated. The size of operation of the IMF creates a moral...

Globalization opens new opportunities also for small and medium sized enterprises (SME). However, empirical information on SMEs' international activities is still fragmented. The paper adds another piece of evidence in analyzing how Berlin SMEs are co-operating with partners in transition...

With twelve new members the decision making in the European Union via intergovernmental cooperation will become ineffective. In order to avoid a Stagno-Europe the EU has a choice: Either it looks for the very essentials in the common institutional frame or the member states agree in ceding...