This paper is a tentative summary and appraisal of the main theoretical arguments and empirical evidence for/against an industrial policy in support of high-tech industries. The paper reviews arguments based on endogenous growth theory and strategic trade theory and surveys the most relevant...

This paper presents a synoptic interpretation of structural unemployment in Europe. The paper consists of three parts. Part 1 summarises some major stilysed facts of the record and the state of unemployment in Europe. In part 2, these facts are taken as the basis for a theoretical interpretation...

Seit Schumpeters Tod im Jahre 1950 ist eine Vielzahl biographischer Essays**erschienen, die teils mit nostalgischer Schwärmerei, teils mit distanzierter Kühle von der facettenreichen Persönlichkeit Schumpeters Zeugnis ablegen. Im folgenden wird versucht, aus diesen Berichten eine Art...

Since the mid-seventies, the general public of some European countries has been listening to a growing chorus of economists and politicians who lament the rising regional imbalances of unemployment. The chorus is especially large in Britain and West Germany where both an approximate north-south...

Economists like to justify public redistributive activity with standard externality arguments. While not denying the existence of a private charity market based on altruism, feelings of social responsibility, pure taste for giving or even -egoistic speculation on future rewards to charity, they...

This paper is no more than a critical note on the mismatch philosophy. Its main point is that, under empirically acceptable assumptions, all measures developed so far - and probably all measures likely to emerge from refining the mismatch tools - are bound to seriously underestimate the extent...

Seit Ende der Sechziger Jahre bemühen sich amerikanische Finanzwissenschaftler und Wohlfahrtstheoretiker um die allokative Rechtfertigung staatlicher Umverteilung. Im Zentrum des Interesses steht dabei das Konzept der Interdependenz von Nutzenfunktionen1 dessen Einführung in die konventionelle...

Until recently the concept of tax expenditures has been exclusively analyzed along traditional Pigouvian lines. Broadly speaking, the introduction of tax/subsidy-schemes was considered to be justified whenever large number externalities prevent the market from working efficiently. This approach...

The main point of this paper will be that West German unemployment in the late 1980's has a curious double character: while its genesis is largely determined by the macroeconomic events of the last two decades - two stabilization crises and one wage revolution -, its current state reveals...