In Germany, around 200 billion euros are invested every year in knowledge-based capital, which encompasses assets such as research and development, software and databases, organizational capital, marketing and advertising, and technical design. Yet investments in traditional capital (such as...

Companies invest in research and development (R&D) to safeguard their competitive ability and increase productivity. Using extensive company data for Germany, the study shows that manufacturing companies that engage in R&D activities and that are located in a central urban agglomeration are...

Following reunification, productivity in eastern Germany grew rapidly. A strong industrial sector is key to a thriving German economy. However, the narrowing of the industrial productivity gap between eastern and western Germany has come to a standstill since the financial and economic crisis...

The mandate of the European Central Bank’s monetary policy is to ensure price stability. Interest rate changes by the ECB affect labor costs and the value added of firms. If both dimensions are not equally affected, monetary policy has a distributive effect between workers and shareholders....

After developing at an increasingly slower pace over the decades, labor productivity in Germany has recently stagnated. This is in contrast to the development of the workforce’s qualifications, which have been growing steadily due to rapid academicization. These phenomena can be found in other...

The efficiency of the German economy is powered by its knowledge-intensive industrial and services sectors. Yet the use of knowledge capital to drive innovation and productivity in Germany is rather low compared to other European countries and the United States. Germany is clearly lagging...

Asylum seekers migrating to Germany remains a hotly debated topic. The second wave of a longitudinal survey of refugees shows that their integration has progressed significantly, even though some refugees came to Germany in poor health and with little formal education. Compared to the previous...

After a turbulent summer, marked by a weak second and a likely stronger third quarter, the German economy should return to an average pace of growth and end up with a growth rate of 0.9 percent in 2019. Despite the more subdued pace, capacity utilization remains high; employment growth is...

German voters in the 2019 European election showed remarkable regional differences in their voting behavior. The Green Party surged in West German districts, while the AfD further consolidated its successes in East Germany. Investigating structural differences at the district level reveals that...

More than one in four patents that major German companies apply for is based on inventions from their research laboratories abroad. In three quarters of the cases, the companies have focused on technologies in which they are very strong at home. Therefore, to a great extent the technological...