The purpose of the paper is to narrow the gap between the widespread use of voluntary agreements and research on the rationale of such approaches. A typical example are voluntary agreements of many industries to reduce carbon dioxide emissions because of global warming. If the industry...

This paper presents an empirical productivity comparison between Japan and Germany, focusing on organization, R&D and infrastructure. Time-series datasets from the auto vehicle and electronic engineering industries are used to demonstrate the reversal in productivity advantage from Germany to...

Division of labor, outsourcing in manufacturing and just-in-time production require the provision of a good and sufficient road infrastructure system. The society is used to mobility, preference for it even increases, and the full benefit of competition can only be realized if special distances...

Germany has committed itself to reducing its carbon emissions by 25 percent in 2005 as compared to 1990 emission levels. To achieve this goal, the government has recently launched an environmental tax reform which entails a continuous increase in energy taxes in conjunction with a...

The purpose of the paper is to outline an analytical framework which captures the ample scope of locational competition: cost differences, resulting from differences in factor prices including taxes, human capital, infrastructure services and total factor productivity. If cost differences are...

The objective of our analysis is to find out whether an increase in working time without pay compensation can be considered an adequate policy to reduce unemployment. From the perspective of economic theory, the outcome is in general ambiguous: On the one hand, as the increase in working time...