The German Income Tax Reform 2000, which announced a reduction in income tax rates to be implemented in a series of three stages, was welcomed by the public as a step towards unleashing lurking growth potentials. Nonetheless, in the course of the year 2001 a dispute arose, centering around the...

During the next decades the populations of most developed countries will grow older as a result of the low level of birth rates since the 1970s and/or the continuously increasing life expectancy. We show within a Generational Accounting framework how unsustainable the public finances of France,...

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...

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...

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...

This paper presents the results of an empirical test concerning the auction model of Gilbert and Newbery (1982). The study uses data on German companies in order to analyze expenditures for technology licenses. Aside of standard control variables the motives for innovation expenditures are also...

We estimate the determinants of various types of product innovation. Knowledge spillovers from rivals have a positive impact on incremental innovations. This impact is largely independent of the participation in R&D cooperations. Spillovers exert no such independent influence on drastic...

The theoretical discussion concerning the question whether the incumbent or the (potential) entrant invests more into R&D has attracted considerable interest. This paper reports the results of an empirical study on this question using data of about 3500 German firms over the years 1992 to 1995....

Most of the existing empirical literature on the relationship of firm value and knowledge capital is based on the stock market valuation of companies. However, the assets of many firms are not publicly traded, and hence the calculation of market value is limited to a subsample of firms. We...