This paper studies the question whether skill-biased technical change diffuses internationally and that way contributes to the increasing relative skill demand in other countries. So far, the role of skill-biased technology diffusion has hardly been studied empirically. Using new sectoral data...

The missing effect of investments of firms in information and communication technologies on productivity is studied by various recent papers (e.g. Oliner and Sichels 1994, Landauer 1995, Brynjolfsson and Hitt 1996). Several explanations are given for this missing link. Our paper deals with two...

This paper examines whether information technology (IT) and decentralized work organization are complementary only for large firms or also for smaller firms. Empirical evidence, which suggests complementarity between IT and decentralization, is mainly based on large firms. Using data from a...

The literature on within-firm organizational change and productivity suggests that firms can make more efficient use of certain technologies if complementary forms of organization are adopted. This issue may be of even greater importance for the case of greenhouse gas (GHG) abatement...

We provide a structured overview of the quantitative literature on the economic impacts of telecommunications networks and broadband internet. Differentiating between wireline and wireless technologies as well as broadband availability and broadband adoption, respectively, we review studies...

Between 1995 and 2008, the global extraction of biomass, fossil fuels, and minerals grew from 48 to 69 billion metric tons. This study investigates how changing consumption and investment patterns affected the aforementioned increase. A series of Structural Decomposition Analyses at a global...

For the case of the German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, production and employment effects of the promotion of renewable energy sources are examined based on a regionalized input-output table. Our findings suggest that policy actions promoting renewable energy types do not necessarily create new...

This paper studies the aggregate substitution and expansion effects triggered by changes in input prices, in a context where firms supply a homogenous commodity and compete in quantities à la Cournot. We derive a sufficient condition for the existence of a Cournot equilibrium and show that this...

Studies of spatial policy interdependence in (local) public policies usually concentrate on the relations between jurisdictions within a single analysed region, and disregard possible extra-regional effects. This paper evaluates the validity of such restriction by studying German local...

This paper analyses the impact of business process outsourcing (BPO) on firm productivity based on a comprehensive German firm-level panel data set covering manufacturing and service industries. The growing importance of service inputs into the production process is undisputed. Firms...