The December 1776 issue of the "Gentleman's Magazine," flagship of British periodicals, features an item unique in the history of 18th-century music: the "Scale to Measure the Merits of Musicians." It comprises an evaluative chart of two-dozen composers, marking the first quantitative assessment...

This paper provides a description and a discussion of some important aspects relating to recent productivity developments in the euro area. Following decades of stronger gains in the euro area than in the US, labour productivity growth has fallen behind that in the US in recent years. This...

The distributive trades sector, which is primarily accounted for by wholesale and retail trade, is not only economically important in its own right, but also relevant to monetary policy. Ultimately, it is retailers who set the actual prices of most consumer goods. They are the main interface...

The aim of this study is to analyse and assess the contrasting national skills policies associated with ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) skill supply in Britain and Germany. We also aim to examine the impact of these strategies on firms and to assess the utilization of skills at...

The financial crisis drew attention to the way in which workers in certain countries had been able to sustain consumption through housing and consumer credit despite insecure labour-market positions. This indicates a need to expand the analysis of the relationship between flexibility and...

Die Akzeptanz kleinräumiger Angebote der Lebensmittelversorgung im Untersuchungsraum Stuttgart steht im Mittelpunkt dieses Arbeitsberichts, der grundsätzliche Überlegungen und aktuelle empirische Untersuchungen am Fachgebiet Agrarmärkte und Agrarmarketing der Universität Hohenheim hierzu...

This paper investigates the implications for international markets of the existence of retailers/wholesalers with market power. Two main results are shown. First, in the presence of buyer power trade liberalization may lead to retail market concentration. Due to this concentration retail prices...

The object of this paper is to discuss on-line intermediation from the perspective of two-sided markets. It builds a simple model of the intermediation activity when trading partners are involved in a commercial relationship and uses it to illustrate some of the results that emerge in the...