In this paper we analyse the impact of policy uncertainty on foreign direct investment strategies. The paper follows the real options approach, which allows to investigate the value to a firm of waiting to invest and/or disinvest, when payoffs are stochastic due to political uncertainty and...

We study an overlapping generations model of human capital accumulation with threshold effects using regional data for West Germany. Our basic goal is to shed light on the growth of West German regions. The paper finds that the relative income distribution appears to be stratifying into a...

The paper bases itself on recent theoretical writings in growth economics that emphasize the effects of both own R&D efforts and of interregional technology spillovers on regions´ productivity. We propose robust estimation techniques to evaluate the R&D spillovers across West German functional...

The standard literature on working time has modelled the decisions of firms in a deterministic framework in which firms can choose between employment and overtime (given mandated standard hours). Contrary to this approach, we follow the real options approach, which allows us to investigate the...

Funke M. and Niebuhr A. (2005) Regional geographic research and development spillovers and economic growth: evidence from West Germany, Regional Studies39, 143-153. The paper is based on recent theoretical writings in growth economics that emphasise the effects of both own research and...

FITZROY F. and FUNKE M. (1998) Skills, wages and employment in east and west Germany, Reg. Studies 32 , 459-467. Disaggregated data from 28 two-digit manufacturing industries in the east and west parts of unified Germany are used to estimate employment for three skill categories of blue collar...