Economic inequalities have been increasing in many countries since the 1980s provoking calls for more income redistribution. One argument against increased redistribution is that it could hamper innovation and technological progress. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper that...

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...

Do higher wages lead to more automation innovation? To answer this question, we first use the frequency of certain keywords in patent text to create a new measure of automation innovation in machinery. We show that our measure is correlated with a reduction in routine tasks in a cross-sectoral...

Robert Gordons Hypothese der schwächelnden Innovationen und der Gegenwinde ist ein interessanter Erklärungsansatz für das Phänomen der niedrigen Produktivitäts- und Wirtschaftswachstumsraten in den entwickelten Volkswirtschaften. Die Verlangsamung des Wirtschaftswachstums und der...