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R&D Expenditures and Geographical Sales Diversification

This paper empirically examines the role of diversification in export markets on firm-level R&D activities taking account of the potential endogeneity in this relationship. We show that geographical sales diversification across different regions of the world induces UK firms to increase their R&D expenditures, as firms must innovate and develop new products to maintain a competitive edge over their ...

Rates of Return and Early Retirement Disincentives: Evidence from a German Pension Reform

To counteract the financial pressure emerging in aging societies, statutory pension schemes are undergoing fundamental reforms in many Western countries. Starting with cohort 1937, Germany introduced permanent pension deductions for early retirement. This study examines the profitability of pension contributions against the background of this reform for cohorts 1935–1945. Internal rates of return (IRR) ...

Firms' Evaluation of Location Quality: Evidence from East Germany

Our study provides evidence for firms’ evaluation of location quality. We use a 2004 survey of 6,000 East German firms that contained questions on the importance and assessment of 15 different location factors ranging from closeness to customers and suppliers, transport infrastructure, and proximity to research institutions and universities, as well as questions about the local financial institutions ...

Language Acquisition of Recently Arrived Immigrants in England, Germany, Ireland, and the Netherlands

This study examines processes of language acquisition among new immigrants from Poland and Turkey in different European destinations focusing on the first few months after arrival. Starting from a human capital framework, a variety of pre- and post-migration conditions of language learning are addressed, including economic and non-economic incentives, the amount of exposure to the destination language ...

Fiscal Policy Rules, Budget Deficits, and Forecasting Biases

In this paper, we analyze the impact fiscal policy rules have on budget deficits and forecasting biases in official budget outlooks. Persistent budget deficits and over-optimistic budget forecasts have been observed in many countries in the past, especially in the euro area. To prevent such developments from happening in the future, fiscal rules have been revised or implemented with the aim to strengthen ...

A Generalized Approach for Measuring the Marginal Social Costs of Road Transport in Europe

Social marginal cost pricing requires bottom-up calculations of social marginal costs for all circumstances. Because this is not practicable for policymaking, we suggest an approach to generalize available cost estimates and present results from this for two case studies. We conclude that in the peak period congestion costs are the most important externality of road use, and that accidents, wear and ...

Between the Hammer and the Anvil: The Impact of Economic Sanctions and Oil Prices on Russia's Ruble

Structural Vector Autoregressions: Checking Identifying Long-Run Restrictions via Heteroskedasticity

Long-run restrictions have been used extensively for identifying structural shocks in vector autoregressive (VAR) analysis. Such restrictions are typically just-identifying but can be checked by utilizing changes in volatility. This paper reviews and contrasts the volatility models that have been used for this purpose. Three main approaches have been used, exogenously generated changes in the unconditional ...

Financing Patterns of R&D in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises and the Perception of Innovation Barriers in Germany

We analyze the role public support plays in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) R&D financing as well as these firms’ assessments of financing conditions in the context of other framework conditions for innovation. Using the sample of 2,708 German SMEs that participated in public R&D promotion programs during 2005–10, we identify four unique types of R&D financing. Firms are generally positive ...

Veränderungen in der gruppenspezifischen Nutzung von ganztägigen Schulangeboten: Längsschnittanalysen für den Primarbereich

Seit Beginn des Bundes-Investitionsprogramms „Zukunft Bildung und Betreuung“ (IZBB) im Jahr 2003 hat sich der Anteil der Grundschulkinder, die ganztägig eine Schule besuchen, mehr als vervierfacht. Vor diesem Hintergrund untersucht der vorliegende Beitrag zum einen, welche demografischen und sozioökonomischen Merkmale Kinder aufweisen, die ganztägige Schulangebote nutzen. Zum anderen wird der Frage ...