In the last two decades the support of clusters has become a useful and frequently used tool for the improvement of country, and especially regional competitiveness in many countries. Nowadays, clusters are often supported from the public sources through cluster programs in multiple European...

The population growth of cities in industrialized countries is characterized by striking disparities. While some cities experience a kind of resurgence in recent years others suffer from an ongoing depopulation. In this context an important issue refers to the question whether labour market...

Despite large-scale governmental efforts to combat homelessness, homelessness rates can only be reduced but not eliminated completely by the measures usually applied. Hence, there is an obvious need to investigate additional factors which contribute to homelessness and gain insights on how to...

Many governments subsidize electric mobility (E-mobility) to increase the share of electric vehicles (EV) in the car fleet. This aims at reducing carbon emissions. Despite that there is not much research on the full economic costs and benefits of this measures. There are only a few Cost Benefit...

Using longitudinal employment register data this study analyzes the development of outcomes of male foreign workers from all important sending countries across time. Cohort analyses on persons entering the German labour market between 1995 and 2000 show significant differences in the...

This paper employs panel data on 413 counties and cities over 2004-2009 to investigate the local supply of new single-family housing in Germany. Construction activity in local housing markets (measured by new housing permits related to the local housing stock) is modeled as a function of local...

In recent times, there has been a renewed interest in cluster policies for supporting industrial and regional development. Prominent economics like Porter and Krugman emphasise the role of clusters in regional competition and show in which way clusters can positively affect competition by...

Motivated by the highly-unionized public sectors, the high public shares in total employment, and the public-sector wage premia observed in Europe, this paper examines the importance of public-sector unions for macroeconomic theory. The model generates cyclical behavior in hours and wages that...

The German potable water supply industry is regarded highly fragmented, thus preventing efficiency improvements that could happen through consolidation. Focusing on a hypothetical restructuring of the industry, we use a cross-section sample of 364 German water utilities in 2006, applying Data...

This paper focuses on explaining the economic fluctuations in Bulgaria after the introduction of the currency board arrangement in 1997, the period of macroeconomic stability that ensued, the EU accession, and the episode of the recent global financial crisis. This paper follows Chari et al....