Foreign markets determine success and failure of those industries that have become reliant on foreign demand, impair the demand for employment and invoke changes in occupational fields and qualification requirements. This paper aims to disclose the direct and indirect influence of major trading...

We calibrate a closed multi-country input-output model with data from the World Input-Output Database to estimate the size of spillover effects of Germany's final demand on GDP, employment, and the trade balance in Southern European countries. We find that spillover effects are rather small....

We propose the so-called domestic "embodied unit labor costs" (EULC) at the country-sector level as a new cost-related basis for measures of international competitiveness. EULC take into account that a sector’s labor costs constitute only a small share of its total cost which to a large extent...

This study investigates the within-country heterogeneity of material footprints implied by households' consumption in Germany. Material footprints are defined as the amount of biomass, minerals, and fossil fuels extracted to produce the goods that households consume. Combining input-output data...

This study investigates the within-country heterogeneity of material footprints implied by households' consumption in Germany. Material footprints are defined as the amount of biomass, minerals, and fossil fuels extracted to produce the goods that households consume. Combining input-output data...

We propose the so-called domestic "embodied unit labor costs" (EULC) at the country-sector level as a new cost-related basis for measures of international competitiveness. EULC take into account that a sector's labor costs constitute only a small share of its total cost which to a large extent...

This volume was prepared by Sebastian Benz while he was working at the Ifo Institute. It was completed in December 2013 and accepted as a doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics at the University of Munich. It includes five self-contained chapters. All chapters discuss different...