This paper analyzes the link between the diffusion of information- and communication technology (ICT) and both the skill structure and employment expectations of the different skill categories. The analysis is based on cross-sectional data for 4150 German firms conducted in mid-2000. The...

In dieser Studie werden die Anreize für Innovationsaktivitäten von Firmen mit beschränkter und unbeschränkter Haftung untersucht. Innovationen sind mit einem gewissen Risiko behaftet. Firmeneigner können ihr persönliches Risiko jedoch begrenzen, wenn das Unternehmen eine Rechstform mit...

This paper presents empirical evidence to show how socioeconomic factors affect the adoption of and investment in agrochemicals in the cocoa sector of Côte d’Ivoire. The analysis uses primary farm-level data collected in 2002 from a nationally representative sample of more than one thousand...

We investigate the role of language barriers on both computer adoption and Internet connection in Paraguay, a country in which about 40% of the population is monolingual in Guaraní, 50% bilingual and 6% monolingual in Spanish. Our empirical results show that the ICT diffusion process is highly...

his paper discusses the incentives for innovation when liability is limited or not. Clearly innovative activity involves risk. On the one hand, the risk of firm owners is limited if their liability is limited. On the other hand, credits will be more difficult to receive if liability is limited....

The investigation of the consequences of new technologies has a long standing tradition within economics. Particularly, labor economists are wondering how the introduction of new technologies, e.g. Personal Computers, have shaped labor markets. Former research has concentrated on the question of...

This paper presents a simple model capturing differences between debt and equity finance to examine how financial structure matters for macroeconomic volatility. Debt finance is relatively cheap in the sense that debt holders need to verify relatively few profitability states, but debt finance...

The Bank of Japan conducted its quantitative easing policy ( QEP) from 2001 to 2006, with the policy commitment to maintaining its QEP until the CPI inflation rate became stably zero or higher. We evaluate its effects by using individual survey data on inflation expectations as well as interest...

The article summarizes the key results of researches in the field of early warning systems for financial crises, conducted by the Center for Macroeconomic Analysis and Short-Term Forecasting (CMASF) since 2005. The proposed early warning system consists of three major blocks: the leading...

The Bank of Japan conducted its quantitative easing policy (QEP) from 2001 to 2006, with the policy commitment to maintaining its QEP until the CPI inflation rate became stably zero or higher. We evaluate its effects by using individual survey data on inflation expectations as well as interest...