In Unternehmungen werden regelmäßig Entscheidungen über IT-Projekte getroffenmit dem Ziel, den Nutzen dieser Investitionen zu maximieren. Vor dem Hintergrund,dass rund zwei Drittel der IT-Projekte den prognostizierten Nutzen nicht erreichen,wird die Notwendigkeit einer ex ante Bewertung von...

This paper introduces a novel approach for dealing with the 'curse of dimensionality' in the case of large linear dynamic systems. Restrictions on the coefficients of an unrestricted VAR are proposed that are binding only in a limit as the number of endogenous variables tends to infinity. It is...

Following a brief review of the theoretical literature on the benefits and shortcomings of fiscal decentralization this paper presents an empirical analysis of the relationship between per capita economic growth and its production function determinants, on the one hand, and constructed...

Corporate tax reforms carried out in EU countries since 1980 entail lower statutory tax rates and reductions in generous tax depreciation provisions. Several countries including the UK have reduced tax rates for SMEs. This study compares incentive effects of such reforms on the SMEs? investment...

In this paper we test the well-known hypothesis of Obstfeld and Rogoff (2000) that trade costs are the key to explaining the so-called Feldstein-Horioka puzzle. Using a gravity framework in an intertemporal context, we provide strong support for the hypothesis and we reconcile our results with...

What role does labor play in firms? market value? We explore this question using a production-based asset pricing model with frictions in the adjustment of both capital and labor. We posit that hiring of labor is akin to investment in capital and that the two interact, with the interaction being...

We present evidence that an increase in investment as a share of GDP predicts a higher growth rate of output per worker, not only temporarily, but also in the steady state. These results are found using pooled annual data for a large panel of countries, using pooled data for non-overlapping...

Anglo-Saxon countries have been successful in the 1990s concerning labor market performance compared to the former role models Germany and Japan. This reversal in relative economic performance might be related to idiosyncracies in financial markets with bank-based financial markets as in Germany...

Economists are often skeptical concerning the economic effects of various forms of human rights: it has been argued that basic human rights can make the legal system less efficient but also that extensive social rights are incompatible with market economies. It is argued here that basic human...

We apply the accelerator principle to measure the functional efficiency of capital markets. We estimate the elasticity of capital with respect to output using a panel of firms across 44 countries, and compare the results with existing approaches. Furthermore, we correlate our measure with...