"Politically adrift, alienated from Weimar society, and fearful of competition from industrial elites and the working class alike, the independent artisans of interwar Germany were a particularly receptive audience for National Socialist ideology. As Hitler consolidated power, they emerged as an...

The question of whether firms gain competitiveness through local networks and clusters becomes more relevant than ever as globalization proceeds. This is particularly true for traditional and craft-based clusters, districts and business networks. A central question emerging for these types of...

Auf der Basis der Einkommensteuerdaten lassen sich Angaben zu Selbstständigen sowie zu Gründungen nach Tätigkeitsarten ermitteln. Bis zum Jahr 2007 ist die Anzahl der Personen mit selbstständigen Tätigkeiten auf 6,8 Millionen gestiegen. Davon entfallen rund eine Million auf...

This paper examines the effects that purchased services and imported intermediate materials have on the labour demand for different skills in the manufacturing sector. We derive and estimate a factor demand system based on the generalised Box-Cox cost function nesting both the normalised...