Companies invest in research and development (R&D) to safeguard their competitive ability and increase productivity. Using extensive company data for Germany, the study shows that manufacturing companies that engage in R&D activities and that are located in a central urban agglomeration are especially productive. They additionally benefit from knowledge created by R&D activities of other companies ...
In Germany, around 200 billion euros are invested every year in knowledge-based capital, which encompasses assets such as research and development, software and databases, organizational capital, marketing and advertising, and technical design. Yet investments in traditional capital (such as machinery and non-residential buildings) still significantly outweigh knowledge investments, standing at over ...
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). ...
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 ...
Although the federal government has been taking steps to strengthen investment in Germany, it remains considerably low. This includes private investment, on which thepresent study focuses. German companies are barely investing more than they did before the crisis, but this is not the case elsewhere: in the US, for example, the level of investment is nearly 14 percent higher than it was in 2007. One ...
DIW Berlin has examined the effects of investment in research and development on economic growth in Germany and other OECD countries. Their results show that an increase of one percentage point in research and development spending in the economy as a whole leads to a short-term average increase in GDP growth of approximately 0.05 to 0.15 percentage points. The coefficient for Germany is at the upper ...
Based on capital stock, in total, over six trillion euros less was invested in the European Union between 1999 and 2007 than in the non-European OECD countries, including the US, Canada, and Japan. In the euro area, investment was more than 7.5 trillion euros less than in non-European OECD countries. In virtually all EU member states, gross fixed assets (capital stock) are older than the OECD average ...
Between 2000 and 2009, China became the second largest industrialized nation, while manufacturing industries in other emerging and many Eastern European countries also experienced very strong growth. However, Germany was largely able to maintain its share of global industrial output. In 2009, as in 2000, Germany's value added share represented around 6.5 percent. This shows that Germany as an industrial ...
No large industrialized nation is as strongly specialized in the production of R&D-intensive goods as Germany. In the crisis year 2009 these export-oriented industries had to pass a crucial test. The slump in sales endangered both specialized jobs and the financing of high R&D expenditures, and thus the ability of these industries to compete technologically in the future. The Commission of Experts ...