We estimate monetary policy reaction functions with threshold effects for the Deutsche Bundesbank using a real-time data set. Estimates based on the deviation of inflation from the Bundesbank's inflation target as threshold variable suggest a switch to a stronger output gap response in the...

In response to the recent sovereign debt crisis, the member states of the European Union agreed to enact balanced budget rules in their national legislation. However, little is known about the public’s opinion of balanced budget rules. To fill this gap, we conducted a survey among 2,000...

Employing data from a representative survey conducted in Germany, this paper examines public preferences for the size and composition of government expenditure. We focus on public attitudes toward taxes, public debt incurrence, and public spending in six different policy areas. Our findings...

The paper at hand investigates how co-patenting over distance develops when aggregating inventive activities on a regional level. That means, the object of analysis is a link between two regions in contrast to other studies, where links between two individuals or firms are investigated. We...

The paper compares academic and corporate patents in Germany to shed light on the geographical distribution of the inventors. The residences of the inventors show different patterns in the two datasets. Furthermore, we analyze the spatial distance between inventors for patents invented in...

The poor state of public finances in many countries has led to calls for fiscal consolidation. In practice, implementing concrete consolidation measures appears to meet with public resistance, suggesting that the success of consolidation efforts strongly depends on the popularity of the chosen...

In the literature there is a controversy about the relevance of the spatial dimension in innovation collaboration. We examine the link between the spatial composition of group members and group characteristics which are important for performing innovation projects. To this end, we introduce a...

This paper analyses the development of universities' patent applications in Germany before and after the abolition of the 'professors' privilege' in 2002. By means of a database with all patent applications of German universities with professors among the inventors (1990-2006), systematic...

This paper studies attitudes about who should provide for the livelihood of the elderly in two aging societies, namely Germany and Japan. Applying an ordered logit model to individual data from representative public opinion surveys, it is analysed which socio-demographic, economic or political...

We analyze the impact of large firms on business tax rates using data from German mu-nicipalities in Hesse in 1998-2005. Results suggest that business tax rates decrease with tax-payers’ concentration, indicating strong local lobbying power of large firms.