I evaluate the effect of inflation targeting on inflation and how it interacts with product market deregulation during the disinflationary process in the 1990s. Using a sample of 21 OECD countries, I show that, after controlling for product market deregulation, the effect of inflation targeting...

We propose a novel approach to model serially dependent positive-valued variables which realize a non-trivial proportion of zero outcomes. This is a typical phenomenon in financial time series observed at high frequencies, such as cumulated trading volumes. We introduce a flexible point-mass...

R&D encompasses plenty of activities which are usually summarized under the terms of basic research, applied research and development. Although basic research is often associated with low appropriability it provides the fundamental basis for subsequent applied research and development....

This note analyzes the existence of a possible media bias by determining the impact of automobile manufactures' advertisements on the probability that German car magazines review their products. By accounting for possible endogeneity, we find a positive impact of advertising volumes on test...

A popular interpretation of the Rational Expectations/Efficient Markets hypothesis states that, if the hypothesis holds, then market valuations must follow a random walk. This postulate has frequently been criticized on the basis of empirical evidence. Yet the assertion itself incurs what we...

The authors provide evidence on the impact of foreign ownership on labor market outcomes analyzing pay differences between foreign-acquired and domestically owned firms. For this purpose, they use firm-level data from 16 European countries over the time period 19992006. Combing propensity score...

We propose a general framework to assess merger policy effectiveness based on standard oligopoly theory and stock market reactions. We focus on four different dimensions of effectiveness: 1) legal certainty, 2) decision errors, 3) reversion of anti-competitive rents, and 4) deterrence. We apply...

Insufficient capital buffers of banks have been identified as one main cause for the large systemic effects of the recent financial crisis. Although higher capital is no panacea, it yet features prominently in proposals for regulatory reform. But how do increased capital requirements affect...

This paper reconsiders the issue of share price reactions to dividend announcements. Previous papers rely almost exclusively on a naive dividend model in which the dividend change is used as a proxy for the dividend surprise. We use the difference between the actual dividend and the analyst...

This paper aims to find evidence for the positive impact of cluster structures on employment development in Germany. It develops a new way of measuring the co-location of suppliers and buyers of intermediate goods in a region as well as the importance for the employment development in individual...