Ellison and Glaeser's (1997) index of geographical concentration distinguishes between natural advantages and spillovers as a source of industrial agglomeration, but the well-known 'observational equivalence' means little is known about the relative importance of these. This paper uses the...

This paper provides empirical evidence on the relationship between cross-border acquisitions and innovation activities of the acquirer. For the empirical analysis a unique firm-level data set is constructed that combines survey data for German firms with a merger and acquisition database. After...

This paper investigates the existence of a possible media bias by analyzing the impact of automobile manufactures' advertisements on automobile reviews in German car magazines. By accounting for both endogeneity and sample selection we find a positive impact of advertising volumes on test...

In the empirical literature on grocery retailing it is typically assumed that all consumers choose from the full set of products in the market. We develop an approach to formally test this assumption. Our test can be applied to individual-level purchase data. Unlike previous approaches it does...

We consider dynamic price-setting by firms in the presence of rating systems and asymmetric information about product quality. The current price determines the set of purchasing consumers and thereby affects future ratings and continuation profits. We outline the effects of prices on consumers'...

The literature has found evidence for a wage polarization depending on routine and non-routine working tasks. Using unique German survey data we ask whether wage polarization coincides with polarization in job satisfaction. First, we find that contrary to what polarization predicts, routine...

There is widespread concern that major cities and their inhabitants are highly vulnerable to transit strikes. Governments in many countries have addressed this concern by limiting the right of transit workers to strike. Whether or not this can be justified depends, in turn, on whether strikes by...

Times of high unemployment always inspire debates on the role of labor market policy and its optimal implementation. This paper uses a dynamic model of search unemployment and bilateral wage bargaining, rich enough to analyze a set of policy instruments with respect to their employment and...

This paper employs a two-period life-cycle model to derive the optimal tax policy when educational investments are subject to endogenous credit constraints. Credit constraints arise from the limited commitment of creditors to repay loans and from the moral hazard problem due to private...

This paper evaluates the effect of the French enterprise zone program on residents of these deprived neighborhoods. A second contribution is the evaluation of the composition effects in the zones and of externalities on the neighbors of the enterprise zones. The third contribution is the...