In Germany, unlike other OECD countries, research-intensive industries play a crucial role for overall economic growth. In the course of the 2008/2009 financial crisis these industries were hit especially hard by a sharp decline in production. This article studies how the crisis affected the...

Boone (2008a) proposes a new competition measure based on Relative Profit Differences (RPD) that, from its theoretical properties, proves to be more robust than the Lerner-Index. However, the proof of the empirical practicability and robustness of the Boone-Indicator is missing. To fill this...

Based on capital stock, in total, over six trillion euros less was invested in the European Union between 1999 and 2007 than in the non-European OECD countries, including the US, Canada, and Japan. In the euro area, investment was more than 7.5 trillion euros less than in non-European OECD...

Research usually finds a positive size-efficiency relationship, but few studies focus on sectors dominated by small and medium-sized firms (SMEs). This paper fills this gap by analyzing this relationship in the German mechanical engineering industry sector, which is both successful and...

European and German economic policy are increasingly shifting their emphasis to small and medium- sized enterprises (SMEs). In 2008, the European Union adopted the Small Business Act with the goal of creating better underlying conditions for smaller businesses. The German government is also...

The euro area economy is heavily specialized in research-intensive industries. The significance of these branches varies dramatically across the euro area countries but they are particularly important in Germany. Recent debate implies, to a certain extent, that the introduction of the euro...

Die Befristung von Arbeitsverträgen hat in den letzten Jahren zunehmend an Bedeutung gewonnen. In der Folge wird auch intensiv über die positiven wie negativen Effekte dieser Beschäftigungsform diskutiert. Die Debatte beschränkt sich jedoch im Wesentlichen auf Arbeitsmarktaspekte und die...

Based on capital stock, in total, over six trillion euros less was invested in the European Union between 1999 and 2007 than in the non-European OECD countries, including the US, Canada, and Japan. In the euro area, investment was more than 7.5 trillion euros less than in non-European OECD...

Atypische Beschäftigungsverhältnisse haben nicht nur in Deutschland, sondern europaweit zugenommen. Diese Entwicklung wird begleitet durch intensiver werdende Debatten über die Vor- und Nachteile derartiger Beschäftigungsverhältnisse, wobei häufig ein positiver Nutzen für die Unternehmen...