In the German automobile industry the vertical integration, as an indicator of value added, is on average low. Beyond the argument of relative high labour costs for manufacturing, several specific reasons for the level of vertical integration, linked to the flexibility of business administration...

Using data from the US automobile market, we empirically examine the link between competition and innovation. Consistent with a large literature, we use patent counts as a measure of innovation. The combination of the US market's economic importance, market dynamics, and the significant...

Can directed technical change be used to combat climate change? We construct new firm-level panel data on auto industry innovation distinguishing between "dirty" (internal combustion engine) and "clean" (e.g. electric and hybrid) patents across 80 countries over several decades. We show that...

Im Mittelpunkt der Serien- oder Sortenfertigung steht die Frage, wie häufig der Materialfluss unterbrochen werden muss und welche geschlossene Auftragsmenge eines Produktes jeweils hergestellt wird, es tritt also die Aufgabe auf, die kostenoptimierte Losgröße zu ermitteln. Lagerkosten,...

Conventional hedonic analysis measures willingness to pay for attributes on the basis of marginal fixed costs. We argue that in many cases variable costs are also affected by these attributes and that this should be taken into account. We develop a simple model to show that the marginal...

We examine how the risk-return profiles of carmakers BMW and Porsche depend on whether car models are produced in the US or Europe. Using data from the US car market we combine a demand system for differentiated products with counterfactual paths to macroeconomic variables. We let prices and...