In this study, we suggest an explanation for the alarmingly low growth rates of real housing prices in Canada and Germany in comparison to other OECD countries over 1975-2005. We show that the long-run development of housing markets is determined by real disposable per capita income, real...

The aim of this paper is to analyze the effect of revenue decentralization on the provision of infrastructure at the sub-national level. We estimate the effects of revenue decentralization and earmarked grant financing on the level of sub-national infrastructure investment in 20 European...

This paper investigates the link between the optimal level of non-financial firms? liquid assets and uncertainty. We develop a partial equilibrium model of precautionary demand for liquid assets showing that firms alter their liquidity ratio in response to changes in either macroeconomic or...

The European Union made a number of steps not least of them the introduction of a common currency to foster the integration of the European financial markets. A number of papers have tried to gauge the degree of integration for various financial markets looking at the convergence of interest...

A strong private equity market is a cornerstone for commercialization and innovation in modern economies. However, substantial differences exist in the relative amounts raised and invested in private equity across European countries. We investigate the macro-determinants of private equity...

Spatial heterogeneity and spatial dependence are two well established aspects of house price developments. However, the analysis of differences in spatial dependence across time and space has not gained much attention yet. In this paper we jointly analyze these three aspects of spatial data. We...

This paper, which is one of the first to estimate productivity in retail electricity for a European country after liberalisation, analyses the effect of ownership and governance structure by using a unique dataset of German electricity retailers from 2003 to 2012. An innovative service...

Based on a multiple spells approach, this paper studies the extent and the composition of chronic poverty in Germany. The results indicate that about one third of cross-sectional poverty in a given year is chronic. The characteristics that are most closely associated with long-term poverty are...

We link life-satisfaction data to inequality of the pre- and post-government income distribution at the regional level, to estimate the degree of inequality aversion. Three different inequality measures are used. In addition, we investigate whether a reduction in inequality by the state...

Im Zuge des GKV-Modernisierungsgesetzes wurde zum 1.1.2004 eine so genannte Praxisgebühr von ?10 pro Quartal für ambulante Arzt- und Zahnarztbesuche erhoben. Neben einem Beitrag zur Konsolidierung der Finanzlage der GKV sollte die Praxisgebühr auch eine Verhaltensänderung der Versicherten...