The literature on skill-biased technological change concentrates on highly skilled and unskilled employees. It is unclear, however, if the employment opportunities of the majority of the labour force in Germany-employees with a degree from the dual apprenticeship system-increase or not. In...

Skills shortage has become a key policy issue in highly developed and innovation-oriented economies, with non-negligible consequences on firms' innovation activities. We investigate the effect of skills shortage on firms' innovation openness, which is considered to be one of the key drivers of...

The cost and revenue earnings potential of alternative power generation sources has shifted considerably in recent years. Here we introduce the concept of Levelized Profit Margins (LPM) to capture the changing unit economics of both intermittent and dispatchable generation technologies. We apply...

This paper examines how optimal renewable energy (RE) support (RES) policies need to be adjusted to account for carbon prices. We show theoretically and empirically that changing carbon prices requires adjusting RE production subsidies due to two different motives: First, RE premiums need to be...

We analyze the economic factors which have contributed to the dramatic decline of the employment share of unskilled labor in German manufacturing, in particular the role played by the relatively rigid earnings structure. Potential effects of intensified international competition and skillbiased...

The impact of technology on the demand for heterogeneous labor is controversely discussed throughout the literature. New technology which is said to favor high skilled labor and to substitute low skilled labor is often considered as the main reason for the decline in relative demand for low...

This paper analyses the link between technological product and processes innovations and expectations about future employment for different types of labour in manufacturing. The empirical model allows for endogeneity of the firm's innovation decision in the labour demand equations. The system of...

Die Bekämpfung der Arbeitslosigkeit genießt oberste wirtschaftspolitische Priorität - dieser Feststellung wird kaum jemand widersprechen wollen. Eher scheiden sich die Geister an der Frage nach dem "wirklichen" quantitativen Ausmaß der Unterbeschäftigung, ihren Ursachen und welche...