R&D expenditures of firms varies vastly between and within industries. In recent years a lot of theoretical and empirical studies attempted to explain the distribution of R&D expenditures. Four main factors repeatedly appeared in this literature: Firm size, market power, appropriability and...

Im Zuge der Umstrukturierung der ostdeutschen Wirtschaft verringerte sich die Produktion in den neuen Bundesländern im Zeitraum von 1989 bis 1991 um über 42 Prozent. Auch 1992 war der Schrumpfungsprozeß noch nicht abgeschlossen und führte weiterhin zu einem starken Beschäftigungsabbau sowie...

Ein Schlüsselfaktor für das wirtschaftliche Wachstum und für die internationale Wettbewerbsfähigkeit der deutschen Wirtschaft bilden die Innovationsanstrengungen der Unternehmen. Durch die Globalisierung der Märkte wird die Fähigkeit, neue Produkte, neue technische Verfahren und Ideen...

This paper presents new evidence on the formation of producer prices based on a onetime survey that was conducted on a sample of 1200 German firms in manufacturing in June 2004. Most of the firms have price-setting power and apply mark-up pricing. Indexation is negligible. Fixed nominal...

Price setting in German metal-working industries is analysed using a monthly panel of individual price data for more than 2,000 plants covering the period from 1980 to 2001. Motivated by several models in the literature, a duration model is estimated. Price changes can be explained by a...

This study investigates the pricing behaviour of firms in the euro area on the basis of surveys conducted by nine Eurosystem national central banks, covering more than 11,000 firms. The results, robust across countries, show that firms operate in monopolistically competitive markets, where...

This paper presents original evidence on price setting in the euro area at the individual level. We use micro data on consumer (CPI) and producer (PPI) prices, as well as survey information. Our main findings are: (i) prices in the euro area are sticky and more so than in the US; (ii) there is...