Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel for the years 2000 to 2006 we analyze the determinants and labor market effects of educational dropout. In addition to classical variables like family background and occupation, we examine noncognitive skills and Internet use. Noncognitive skills...

Immigrants consist of foreigners and citizens with migration background. We analyze the wage gap between natives and these two groups in Germany. The estimates show a substantial gap for both groups with respect to natives. Discarding immigrants who completed education abroad reduces much of the...

Language proficiency may not only affect the earnings of the individual, but the probability to participate in the labor market or becoming employed as well. It may also affect selection of people into economic sector and occupation. In this paper, the effects of language proficiency on earnings...

We analyze the productivity effects of environmental (green) investment as well as of environmental expenditures and energy expenditures. For this purpose, we follow a production function approach where we account for these investment and expenditure categories as inputs. Based on a panel...

In the tax policy debate, differentiation of value-added taxes is often justified by distributional concerns. Our quantitative analysis for Germany indicates that such concerns are misplaced. We find that the abolition of VAT differentiation has only negligible redistributive effects. Instead,...

This paper investigates the evolution of wages and the recent tendency to rising wage inequality in Germany, based on the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) for 1984 to 2004. Between 1984 and 1994 the wage distribution was fairly stable. Wage inequality started to increase around 1994 in...

In recent years, firms have increasingly contributed to and been confronted with a patent landscape characterized by numerous but marginal inventions, overlapping claims and patent fences. Literature suggests that both the fragmentation of ownership and the threat of a firm's patent applications...

The increasing commercialization of university discoveries has initiated a controversy on the impacts for future scientific research. It has been argued that an increasing orientation towards commercialization may have a negative impact on more fundamental research efforts in science. Several...

Less than half of the people with migration background living in Germany possess foreign citizenship. Hence, using citizenship to analyze economic issues of immigration may be problematic for two reasons. On the one hand, a quite substantial share of persons with migration background is...

Inter-departmental innovation collaboration facilitates innovation performance. At the same time, it has been identified as source of increased coordination costs. Using organizational information processing theory, this paper builds and tests hypotheses on the costs and benefits of...