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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 ...

Rationality and Competition: The Economic Performance of Individuals and Firms

The Collaborative Research Center Transregio “Rationality and Competition” combines the research programs of behavioral and neoclassical economists to study applied economic questions that are of high policy relevance. The focus CRC TRR 190 is on the economic behavior and performance of individuals and firms: How do systematic biases in expectations, decision processes, and preferences affect the...

Consequences of Overeducation among Career Starters in Germany: A Trap for the Vocationally Trained as well as for University Graduates?

Research on the consequences of starting in overeducation often focuses on either secondary or tertiary graduates. We focus on both within one country, Germany. While matching and search models imply the improvement of initial overeducation, human capital theory and stigma associated with overeducation predict entrapment. The strongly skill- and occupation-based labour market for the vocationally trained ...

Measurement of the Digitalisation of the German Economy

The purpose of the project is to measure the digitalisation of the German economy and to track its development over time. The results will serve as an evidence-based framework for decision makers in policy and business. The project comprises several topics. DIW Berlin focuses on the analysis of the productivity effects of digitization.

Broadband and Productivity: Structural Estimates for Germany

We study the impact of broadband availability on firms’ total factor productivity (TFP) using German firm-level data between 2010 and 2015. We adopt a control function approach to causally identify and separately estimate productivity for 46 two-digit manufacturing and service sectors. Over the sample period, broadband availability, measured by 16 Mbps transmission rates, more than doubled in German ...

Locus of Control and Investment in Training

We extend standard models of work-related training by explicitly incorporating workers’ locus of control into the investment decision through the returns they expect. Our model predicts that higher internal control results in increased take-up of general, but not specific, training. This prediction is empirically validated using data from the German Socioeconomic Panel (SOEP). We provide empirical ...

The Productivity Riddle in Business Services

This is an online seminar using Cisco Webex. You will receive the login data with the invitation to the talk. Abstract:   A fast growing and diverse literature has addressed one of the riddles of economic developments: the declining labor productivity growth in almost all advanced economies. One of the reasons discussed is the shift towards service industries with inherently low...

Trade, Global Value Chains and Development: What Role for National Development Banks?

In diesem Artikel diskutieren wir die Notwendigkeit von Industriepolitik und die Rolle der Entwicklungsbanken für wirtschaftliche Entwicklung. Der Aufholprozess der Länder des globalen Südens auf das Produktivitätsniveau und den Lebensstandard des globalen Nordens ist die Ausnahme. Dafür gibt es im Wesentlichen zwei ökonomische Erklärungen. Erstens werden die Entwicklungsländer zu Low-Tech- und arbeitsintensiven ...

Microfirms and Innovation in the Service Sector

Knowledge-Based 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 Knowledge-Based Capital (KBC), despite having a positive effect on productivity at the micro level, is a driver of the weak productivity performance at the ...