Patent renewal studies reveal a highly rightward-skewed distribution of patent values. Our approach elicits valuations approximating those of the patented invention. This paper focuses on the full-term patents of the application year 1977 held by West German and U.S. residents. The tail of...

Using data from the longitudinal Labor Market Monitor for the New German States we provide a portrait of East-West commuters in the first year after unification and evaluate various hypotheses to explain the phenomenon. Commuters may be driven by the search for higher wages in the west or by...

This paper uses micro data to analyze the wage structures in East Germany and West Germany before and after unification. In 1988, the wage distribution in East Germany was much more compressed than in West Germany or in the U.S. Since the collapse of Communism and unification with West Germany,...

Unlike prototype immigration countries, Germany has attracted a large number of southern Europeans as temporary guestworkers in the 60s and 70s. Nevertheless, many of them have stayed on and intend to remain in Germany. I investigate whether these workers have become successfully integrated into...

This paper uses a new firm panel data set to explore the relationship between R&D and productivity in German manufacturing firms for the period from 1979 to 1989. The results confirm the view that R&D is an important determinant of productivity growth. In the cross-section, the elasticity of...

We analyze the impact of increased immigration on labor market outcomes of natives in Germany using a dataset of county level variables for the late 1908s. In order to construct more unified labor market regions we aggregate the 328 counties to 167 larger regions. We study two measures of...