We analyze the dramatic decline of the employment share of unskilled labor in the West German economy, in particular its relation to the relatively rigid earnings structure. We find that the substitution elasticity between unskilled and skilled labor is rather low in most sectors of the economy....

This paper deals with the effects of publicly funded research at universities, polytechnics and federal research labs on industrial innovations in Germany. We discuss the characteristics of companies that benefit from the findings of public research institutions. In questioning 2,300 companies...

In the paper we simulate a revenue-neutral cut in the social security contribution rate using five different types of macro- / microeconomic models, namely two models based on time-series data where the labour market is modelled basically demand oriented, two models of the class of computable...

The labor supply of West German married and cohabiting couples is analyzed using a discrete choice model. Following van Soest (1995), the labor supply decision is based on a household utility function which is determined by the leisure of the two spouses and net household income. Furthermore,...

In the following paragraphs we will discuss the 'mapping of innovative clusters in national innovation systems'. For this we have used a data set of almost 3.000 firms that participated in the first and fifth survey of the Mannheimer Innovation Survey (which is comparable with CIS data). The...

In April 1995, 5.3 million people in Germany were on the lookout for a new job opportunity. 177,000 or nearly 3% of those were searching for an opportunity to get self-employed. In this study the determinants of the lookout for selfemployment in lieu of wage work are investigated separately for...

The present paper deals with the question whether 'Gibrat's law' is applicable to firms founded between 1989 and 1996 within the Western German manufacturing sector or not. The underlying assumption is that size of a firm has no influence on its growth. Growth is rather determined by a process...