The paper constructs an asymmetric information model to investigate the efficiency and equity cases for government mandated benefits. A mandate can improve workers' insurance, and may also redistribute in favor of more "deserving" workers. The risk is that it may also reduce output. The more...

In this paper the outlier robust GMM panel data estimator recently proposed by Lucas, van Dijk, and Kloek (1994) is applied to an Euler equation model of firm investment behaviour with imperfectly competitive product markets for a small panel of German nonfinancial stock companies. Plots for...

The aim of this paper is to describe and discuss the weak and strong sustainability approach of assessing climate change and to show reasonable applications, weaknesses, possible improvements and linkages of both approaches. Main features of "weak" and "strong" sustainability approaches are...

This paper develops a three stage oligopoly game for R&D cooperation, R&D expenditure and product market competition. In the first stage, firms decide whether or not to conduct R&D in cooperation with other firms. In the second stage the level of R&D investment is determined. Finally, firms...

Virtually all empirical firm-level studies on the demand for labor do not include labor cost in the econometric specification. This is due to the fact that business and innovation survey data usually lack information on labor cost. This paper shows how reliable skill-specific and firm-specific...

R&D collaboration facilitates pooling of complementary skills, learning from the partner as well as sharing risks and costs. Research therefore repeatedly stressed the positive relationship between collaborative R&D and innovation performance. Fewer studies addressed potential drawbacks of...

The Mannheim Enterprise Panel (Mannheimer Unternehmenspanel – MUP) of the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) is the most comprehensive micro database of companies in Germany outside the official business register (which is not accessible to the public). The MUP is based on the firm...

R&D collaboration facilitates pooling of complementary skills, learning from the partner as well as sharing risks and costs. Research therefore repeatedly stressed the positive relationship between collaborative R&D and innovation performance. Fewer studies addressed potential drawbacks of...

We study how consumer search affects pricing in markets with incumbents and entrants using panel data on German electricity retail markets. Consumers observe the baseline price of the incumbent and decide whether or not to search. Incumbent providers can price discriminate between searching and...

This article investigates how a firm's financial strength affcts its dynamic decision to invest in R&D. We estimate a dynamic model of R&D choice using data for German firms in high-tech manufacturing industries. The model incorporates a measure of the firm's financial strength, derived from its...