We evaluate the impact of a major European state aid program for broadband deployment applied to rural areas in the German State of Bavaria in the years 2010 and 2011. Using difference-in-differences estimation strategies, we find that aided municipalities have – depending on broadband quality...

Die Bundesregierung hat vor Kurzem eine "Digitale Agenda" vorgelegt. Intelligente Hard- und Software und die Verknüpfung immer größerer Datensätze bieten erhebliche ökonomische Potenziale und bilden die Basis für Innovationen. Allerdings müssen hierfür auch die technischen...

We evaluate the impact of a major European state aid programme for broadband deployment applied to rural areas in the German state of Bavaria in the years 2010 and 2011. Using matched difference-in-differences estimation strategies, we find that aided municipalities have - depending on broadband...

This study was prepared by Nina Czernich while she was working with the Ifo Institute for Economic Research.It was completed in December 2010 and accepted as a doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics at the University of Munich. The study addresses the question whether the emergence of...

This paper gives a survey of the current state of competition in the German Broadband access market. Existing regulations and their impact on the deployment of high-speed Internet access are evaluated. It is argued that facilities-based competition is preferable to open-network regulations. The...

This volume was prepared by Constantin Mang while he was working at the Ifo Institute. It was completed in 2014 and accepted as a doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics at the University of Munich. It includes a short introduction and four self-contained chapters that focus on ICT...

Online job search is becoming increasingly prominent and is viewed to improve the efficiency of the search process. OLS results suggest a negative association of DSL availability with unemployment rates across German municipalities. However, the roll-out of DSL networks is not random. This paper...

Der Breitbandausbau soll auch in wirtschaftlich unattraktiven Gebieten vorangetrieben werden. Vor allem ländliche Gebiete sind mangels Wirtschaftlichkeit noch unterversorgt. Der Autor schlägt die Einführung eines Netz-Cents vor, um die notwendigen Finanzierungsmittel sicherzustellen. Der...

This paper studies the effects of the introduction of a new mass medium on criminal activity in Germany. The paper asks the question of whether high-speed internet leads to higher/lower sex crime offences and murder. I use unique German data on criminal offences and broadband internet measured...

There is still hardly any empirical evidence on how divergent broadband technologies, and, by extension, bandwidth levels, influence GDP growth, or on the extent of spatial externalities at a regional level. Our study aims to assess the economic benefits of high-speed broadband networks within...