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Minimum Wage in Germany: Countering the Wage and Employment Gap between Migrants and Natives?

This paper investigates the effects of the introduction of a statutory minimum wage in Germany on the wages and employment of migrants. Migrants are an overrepresented group in the low-wage sector and can be expected to particularly benefit from a minimum wage. We combine a “differential trend adjusted difference-in-differences estimator” (DTADD) and descriptive evidence to evaluate the impact of the ...

Remunicipalization, Corporatization, and Outsourcing: The Performance of Public-Sector Firms after Reorganization

This article investigates the impact of reorganization on productivity within public-sector firms addressing the owners' composition, the board-management relationship, and the management's decision to outsource activities. Considering a large panel of 2,325 German municipally owned utilities between 2003 and 2014, firm-level productivity is estimated based on a control function approach. Contrary ...

The Productivity Puzzle in Business Services

In Germany, the productivity of professional services, a sector dominated by micro and small firms, declined by 40 percent between 1995 and 2014. This productivity decline also holds true for professional services in other European countries. Using a German firm-level dataset of 700,000 observations between 2003 and 2017, we analyze this largely uncovered phenomenon among professional services, the ...

Let's Switch to the Cloud: Cloud Adaption and Its Effect on IT Investment and Productivity

The advent of cloud computing promises to improve the way firms utilize IT solutions. Firms are expected to replace large and inflexible fixed-cost investments in IT with more targeted variable spending in cloud solutions. In addition, cloud usage is expected to increase the productivity of firms, as it allows them to quickly customize the IT they require to their specific needs. We assess these assertions ...

Cost and Productivity Effects of Demographic Changes on Local Water Service

We investigate the impact of demographic changes on local public services taking the case of water service. We apply a structural production function approach to a large panel of German water utilities between 2003 and 2014. Exploring variation of population density and the population age structure across service areas and over time, we provide evidence that demographics and their changes significantly ...

From Low Emission Zone to Academic Track: Environmental Policy Effects on Educational Achievement in Elementary School

Intangible Capital and Productivity Divergence

Understanding the causes of the slowdown in aggregate productivity growth is key to maintaining the competitiveness of advanced economies and ensuring long-term economic prosperity. This paper is the first to provide evidence that investment in intangible capital, despite having a positive effect on productivity at the micro level, is a driver of the weak productivity performance at the aggregate level ...

Testing the Superstar Firm Hypothesis

Firms with superior productivity, labeled superstar firms, are argued to be the link between rising concentration and the fall of the aggregate labor share in the US. This analysis confirms that similar evidence is found within the European context: the market share and firm size increase, whereas the labor share decreases with productivity. One of the much discussed mechanisms behind this development ...

A Lasting Crisis Affects R&D Decisions of Smaller Firms: The Greek Experience

We use the prolonged Greek crisis as a case study to understand how a lasting economic shock affects the innovation strategies of firms in economies with moderate innovation activities. Adopting the 3-stage CDM model, we explore the link between R&D, innovation, and productivity for different size groups of Greek manufacturing firms during the prolonged crisis. At the first stage, we find that the ...

A Lasting Crisis Affects R&D Decisions of Smaller Firms: The Greek Experience

We use the prolonged Greek crisis as a case study to understand how a lasting economic shock affects the innovation strategies of firms in economies with moderate innovation activities. Adopting the 3-stage CDM model, we explore the link between R&D, innovation, and productivity for different size groups of Greek manufacturing firms during the prolonged crisis. At the first stage, we find that the ...