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Weekly Report 14 / 2008
The innovative capacity of advanced industrial countries is their most important source of prosperity and growth. DIW Berlin has investigated Germany's innovative capacity for the fourth time in an international comparative survey. The survey evaluates the ability of countries to create and transform knowledge into marketable products and services (i.e., innovations) using a system of indicators that ...
2008| Heike Belitz, Marius Clemens, Jens Schmidt-Ehmcke, Stephanie Schneider, Axel Werwatz
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Weekly Report 11 / 2008
In 2006, after years of stagnating and even significantly declining production, the construction industry finally experienced a year of strong growth (Table 1). In nominal terms, the industry expanded by 7% in 2006. After allowing for price increases, there was real growth of almost 5%, much higher than expected. Admittedly, one cause of this expansion was the effect of a VAT increase announced for ...
2008| Martin Gornig
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Weekly Report 8 / 2008
Innovation potential is not only an elementary precondition for economic efficiency and affluence for nations, but also for regions. Measured on R&D employment in the manufacturing industry, regional concentration has continued to remain high since 1998. The regions of Munich and Stuttgart lead by a wide margin. However, the study shows that not only strong regions benefit from structural change but ...
2008| Alexander Eickelpasch
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Weekly Report 7 / 2008
In the midst of the international financial crisis, the German federal government passed the Risk Limitation Act in autumn 2007. In spring 2008 the Bundestag has finally decided on the law. The domestic private equity/buyout providers, which have not previously been subject to banking supervision, are among the main addressees of the act. Among others, "objectionable macroeconomic activities of financial ...
2008| Dorothea Schäfer, Alexander Fisher
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Weekly Report 5 / 2008
In the course of increasing internationalisation of the German economy, growth in export can also be expected for the German service sector. However, there has only been limited information about the export behaviour of German service companies so far. This gap can be closed to some extent by statistics existing since 2000. This study confirms that export orientation increased between 2000 and 2005. ...
2008| Alexander Eickelpasch
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Weekly Report 3 / 2008
A joint research project at the European University Viadrina, DIW Berlin and the Polish Academy of Science has investigated how companies assess their locational conditions and whether there is a relationship between location attributes and the company performance. In both countries the majority of companies assessed the same location attributes as being important or unimportant for the company's performance. ...
2008| Tadeusz Baczko, Alexander Eickelpasch, Anna Lejpras, Andreas Stephan
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Weekly Report 5 / 2007
After the high growth of 2006, the first quarter of 2007 also shows undiminished high construction production. Evidence of this is provided by the number of hours worked, which see growth rates in double figures in all fields of civil and structural engineering; yet it is surprising that growth in industrial construction lagged somewhat. It remains to be seen to what extent the extremely strong increase ...
2007| Bernd Bartholmai, Martin Gornig
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Weekly Report 4 / 2006
The official statistics are often on the agenda when discussions about the burden of economic agents due to “bureaucracy” take place. They are often considered to be an example of unnecessary but time-consuming demand on companies by the government. A study of the Germany Institute for Economic Research commissioned by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology depicts that, with its 230 million ...
2006| Ingo Pfeiffer, Reiner Stäglin
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Weekly Report 1 / 2006
The capacity of people and companies to bring about innovations, that is, to create new knowledge and implement this in new marketable products and services, is of prominent importance for growth and prosperity in highly developed industrial countries. On commission of Deutsche Telekom Stiftung and Bundesverband der Deutschen Industrie (BDI, Federation of German Industries), DIW Berlin has prepared ...
2006| Heike Belitz, Axel Werwatz
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Weekly Report 36 / 2005
Successful newly established companies are a significant factor for the prosperous development of a national economy. Young innovative companies play a key role in the quick market launch and distribution of new technologies and products. As founders only rarely have sufficient own funds, financing has a considerable influence on the success of a newly established company. In the course of the investment ...
2005| Dorothea Schäfer, Axel Werwatz, Volker Zimmermann