The introduction of a flat tax is supposed to have several advantages. Administration and compliance costs are reduced, as well as incentives for tax evasion. Furthermore, positive employment and growth effects are expected. Despite these advantages, a flat rate tax is not very popular in most...

The stimulation of co-operations and networks has become very popular in R&D policies in recent years. This study examines the development and the impact of publicly funded R&D consortia in Germany. The paper describes the history of R&D funding in Germany with a focus on the development of...

Despite the apparent stability of the wage bargaining institutions in West Germany, aggregate union membership has been declining dramatically since the early 90's. However, aggregate gross membership numbers do not distinguish by employment status and it is impossible to disaggregate these...

Credit ratings are commonly used by lenders to assess the default risk, because every credit is connected with a possible loss. If the probability of a default is above a certain threshold, a credit will not be provided. The purpose of this paper is to test whether credit ratings contribute...

In this paper, human capital investments are evaluated by assuming heterogeneous returns to education. We use the potential outcome approach to measure the causal effect of human capital investments on earnings as a continuous treatment effect. Empirical evidence is based on a sample of West...

This paper empirically analyzes the distribution of unemployment durations in West- Germany before and after the changes during the mid 1980s in the maximum entitlement periods for unemployment benefits for elderly unemployed. The analysis is based on the comprehensive IAB employment subsample...

This study focuses on the impact of innovation policies and R&D collaboration in Germany and Finland. We consider collaboration and subsidies as heterogeneous treatments, and perform an econometric matching to analyze patent activity at the firm level. In general, we find that collaboration has...

Successful innovative activity is a major contribution to the intangible capital of firms. Although its importance is generally acknowledged, the contribution to companies? profits is a priori unclear. We present the results of an empirical study on the effects of the patent stock on...

This paper analyzes the effects of public R&D funding on R&D expenditure and patenting behavior of German firms. The main focus is the direct impact of subsidies on R&D and the indirect effect on innovation output measured by patent applications. We distinguish the productivity of purely...

The present paper first discusses theoretically the different incentives of manager- versus owner-controlled firms for investment into innovative activity. In addition, the role of debt financing is analyzed. Subsequently the results from an empirical study on the determinants of innovative...