We analyze the pass-through of cost changes to retail tariffs in the German electricity market over the 2007 to 2014 period. We find an average pass-through rate of around 60%, which significantly varies with demand factors: while the pass-through rate to baseline tariffs, where firms have...

We provide an evaluation of the impact of public subsidy schemes that aimed to support the development of basic broadband infrastructure in rural areas of Germany. Such subsidies are subject to state aid control by the European Commission (EC). While the EC increasingly recognises the role of...

The 2008 Corporate Tax Reform Law was passed by the parliament in July 2007. It also reforms the trade tax. This applies both to the rate and to the tax base. In future, not only the interest on permanent debt will be included in the tax base, but also all interest paid as well as the financing...

In 2008, the European Commission investigated E.ON, a large and vertically integrated electricity company, for the alleged abuse of a joint dominant position by strategically withholding generation capacity. The case was settled after E.ON agreed to divest 5,000 MW generation capacity as well as...

In the German system of fiscal equalization Länder (States) with tax revenue below the average get payments from the Länder above the average. The difference between the average and the own tax revenue per capita will be compensated up to 75%. To prevent Länder from getting payments form...

Local authorities charge supply companies with concession dues on gas, water and electricity (Konzessionsabgaben), which are similar to some local taxes (local business tax, real property tax). These taxes have already been included in the fiscal equalization system and in the future concession...

We investigate the welfare impact of parallel imports using a large panel data set containing monthly information on sales, ex-factory prices, and further product characteristics for all 700 anti-diabetic drugs sold in Germany between 2004 and 2010. We estimate a two-stage nested logit model of...

We study the impact of broadband availability on firms’ total factor productivity (TFP) using German firm-level data between 2010 and 2015. We adopt a control function approach to causally identify and separately estimate productivity for 46 two-digit manufacturing and service sectors. Over...