-
Weekly Report 26 / 2010
Income disparities between poorer and richer households in Germany have been widening since reunification. Although this income polarisation is reduced during economically favourable periods by strong growth in employment, once the good times are over, it rises all the faster. The longer-term trend not only shows that the number of poorer households is steadily increasing, but also that on average ...
2010| Jan Goebel, Martin Gornig, Hartmut Häußermann
-
Weekly Report 22 / 2010
Germany's big cities are gaining in attractiveness both as a place for living and as a location for companies. Even as Germany's total population is declining, the population of cities increased by nearly 3 percent between 1999 and 2008. The same is true for spatial shifts in the economy: During the past 10 years employment in big cities increased by nearly 4 percent while stagnating in Germany as ...
2010| Kurt Geppert, Martin Gornig
-
Weekly Report 18 / 2010
Germany has profited from the internationalization of research and development (R&D) in multinational companies. While the international R&D balance sheet was balanced until 2001, foreign companies now invest more in R&D in Germany than German companies abroad. The share of R&D expenditures of German multinationals abroad is declining, whereas their global expenditures are increasing. This means the ...
2010| Heike Belitz
-
Weekly Report 16 / 2010
The German mechanical engineering industry, dominated by medium-sized companies, is greatly successful - both on the domestic and on the international market. A first analysis conducted by DIW Berlin reveals that this success cannot be attributed to a better exploitation of potential efficiencies - mechanical engineering is about as efficient as other key sectors (for instance the chemical industry). ...
2010| Alexander S. Kritikos, Alexander Schiersch
-
Weekly Report 14 / 2010
A lack of financial means is viewed as a key reason why small businesses fail. Therefore, also in Germany several institutions tried to establish microloans as a financing tool. A first empirical study, building a benchmark for similar studies in Western Europe, shows that about 15 percent of all self-employed individuals would be interested in getting access to microloans. The study also demonstrates ...
2010| Alexander S. Kritikos, Christoph Kneiding
-
Weekly Report 13 / 2010
In recent decades the internationalization of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) has increased significantly, especially in manufacturing industries. Yet in contrast to large, multinational corporations, not much is known about the international activities of SMEs. Data on East German SMEs show that size and innovative capacity have a significant influence on a company's international involvement, ...
2010| Anna Lejpras
-
Weekly Report 11 / 2010
Germany is the world's biggest gross and net exporter of research-intensive goods, even ahead of the US and Japan. Per capita Germany also has the largest export surplus for research-intensive goods with around USD 3,900. Furthermore, Germany increasingly benefits as an importer - and thus as a user of technologies - from the international division of work. However, Germany's comparative advantages ...
2010| Marius Clemens, Dieter Schumacher
-
Weekly Report 10 / 2010
As a country highly specialized in the production of investment goods, Germany has been especially hard hit by the global recession. Because the production profile of German industry is technology-intensive, however, there is reason to believe that Germany will emerge from the present economic crisis with renewed strength. In no other industrialized nation is production as heavily geared to research-intensive ...
2010| Heike Belitz, Martin Gornig, Alexander Schiersch
-
Weekly Report 6 / 2010
The sharp slump of the German economy has left its mark on the building sector. Commercial construction has been especially affected by the significant decline in companies' propensity to invest - triggered by the macroeconomic downturn. However, due to the stable development of real wages and the overall labour market as well as targeted supporting programmes, the recession has more or less bypassed ...
2010| Martin Gornig, Sebastian Weber
-
Weekly Report 3 / 2010
On behalf of the Deutsche Telekom Stiftung (Deutsche Telekom Foundation) and the Bundesverband der Deutschen Industrien (Federation of German Industries) DIW Berlin has investigated Germany's innovative capacity for the fifth time in an international comparison. The survey evaluates the ability of countries to create and transform knowledge into marketable products and services (i.e., innovations) ...
2010| Heike Belitz, Marius Clemens, Astrid Cullmann, Christian von Hirschhausen, Jens Schmidt-Ehmcke, Doreen Triebe, Petra Zloczysti