The global economic crisis of 2008/2009 hit many firms hard. Faced with rapidly declining sales and highly uncertain economic prospects, firms had to cut costs and reconsider their business strategies. With respect to innovation, cost cutting often means to stop or underresource innovation...

Energy and resource efficiency innovations (EREIs) are often seen as win-win opportunities for both the economic and the environmental performance of firms. It is thus worth asking how the innovation activities and performance of firms with regard to energy and resource efficiency look like: Do...

Benefit sanctions imposed on non-compliant welfare recipients are a new element in the German welfare system. In practice, the sanction policy and the application of sanctions vary considerably across the 439 welfare agencies. Based on combined administrative and survey data, these differences...

We evaluate the effects of the most frequently used German welfare-to-work program on the employment chances of immigrant welfare recipients. In particular, we investigate whether program effects differ between immigrants and natives and what might cause these potential differences. Our results...

The 2005 reform of the German welfare system introduced two competing organizational models for welfare administration. In most districts, a centralized organization was established where local welfare agencies are bound to central directives. At the same time, 69 districts were allowed to opt...

The impact of environmental innovations on firm performance is ambiguous. On the one hand, regulatory-driven environmental innovation may impose additional costs to firms and lower their profits. On the other hand, eco-innovators could profit from lower uncertainty in innovation due to...

Empirical analyses of the determinants of environmental innovations were rarely able to distinguish between different areas of environmental impacts. The paper tries to close this gap by employing a new and unique dataset based on the German Community Innovation Survey conducted in 2009. The...

We evaluate the effects of different short-term training programs on the employment chances of immigrant and native welfare recipients in Germany. In particular, we investigate whether program effects differ between both groups and what might cause these potential differences. In a first step,...

In this paper, we identify key drivers and barriers for the adoption of building energy retrofits in Germany, which is promoted by public policy as an important measure to address the future challenges of climate change and energy security. We analyze data from a 2009 survey of more than 400...

Residential buildings strongly contribute to global CO2 emissions due to the high energy demand for electricity and heating, particularly in industrialised countries. Within the EU, decentralised heat generation is of particular relevance for future climate policy, as its emissions are not...