This paper examines how productivity effects of human capital and innovation vary at different points of the conditional productivity distribution. Our analysis draws upon two large unbalanced panels of 6,634 enterprises in Germany and 14,586 enterprises in the Netherlands over the period...

In most Western, industrialised countries the workforce is ageing rapidly. In order to assess the possible consequences of an ageing workforce, this paper measures the impact of changes in the age structure of establishments on productivity using representative linked employer-employee panel...

Sectoral heterogeneity is crucial to address several economic questions. This paper provides a detailed mapping of sectoral production possibility frontiers, using different nesting structures and levels of aggregation (primary, secondary, tertiary activities and energy-intensive firms)....

Much of the debate on industrialization and displacement has, so far, focused on the optimum compensation for affected households. Our recently concluded study, comprising of a sample of 1017 households including 630 affected (displaced and land acquired) and 387 unaffected households, looks at...

This paper presents a theoretical and empirical investigation of the two basic effects of patenting: the positive effect of temporarily mitigating competition, and the negative effect of mandatory disclosure of a patent application. Providing empirical evidence for the presented theoretical...

R&D encompasses plenty of activities which are usually summarized under the terms of basic research, applied research and development. Although basic research is often associated with low appropriability it provides the fundamental basis for subsequent applied research and development....

Inventors often experience a low productivity after their company has been subject to a merger or acquisition (M&As). It is of central managerial interest to identify factors facilitating the integration of new inventive staff and thereby counteracting innovation declines after M&As. This paper...

This paper provides a labour supply explanation to the observation that in Germany employment changes are asymmetric during the business cycle. Employment increases are slower, because the reservation wage of workers increases in times of job uncertainty. Workers are afraid in those periods of...

Based on a large data set containing information on occupations between 1979 and 1999, this study explores the ?black box? surrounding the skill?biased technological change hypothesis by analyzing the mechanisms that induce information technologies to be complementary to employees with higher...

This paper provides an overview of the treatment of technological change in economic models of environmental policy. Numerous economic modeling studies have confirmed the sensitivity of mid- and long-run climate change mitigation cost and benefit projections to assumptions about technology...