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The recent discussion about the revision of German merger control underlines the relevance of media economic questions. This discussion frequently neglects the particularities of media markets, for example the mutual interconnection of advertising and media markets, i.e. of "two-sided markets". In this paper the impact of "two-sided markets" on mergers is analyzed. The results indicate that an intensive analysis of each case because of the heterogeneity of each market and a stronger economization of merger control would be useful. The basis for an economization could be quantitative analyses that are conducted using existing market data. The print media market is an example of the peculiarities of "two-sided markets" at which network externalities lead to pricing behavior that deviates from that on normal markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is an intensive debate about old-age poverty in Germany that has induced political parties to develop proposals for higher pensions of poor pensioners in light of the federal elections of September 2013. In addition, several proposals from economists aim at reforming the pension system in a way that mitigates old-age poverty. In this paper, we consider these proposals in a computable general equilibrium model in order to derive their effects on the income distribution, on employment, on the capital stock and on GDP. Our results indicate that negative employment, capital and GDP effects are induced by such reforms as compared to the alternative of basic means-tested social welfare in old-age. Moreover, the strongest beneficiaries would be the currently higher age employees with low income and much less the respective younger employees, while younger and higher age employees with high and medium incomes will lose. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The volume of short-term liquidity credit (“Kassenkredit”) of the German municipalities has increased rapidly in the last two decades. This development suggests that this debt instrument has been diverted from its original purpose, namely as an instrument of bridging short-run liquidity shortfalls. In this paper we analyze the reasons for this development – from a legal and institutional perspective on the one hand, and from an economic perspective on the other hand. One key result of the analysis is that this development is partly due to the lacking intervention of municipal supervision institutions from the Länder (German Federal States). Obviously, the Länder tolerate the abuse of the Kassenkredit in order to avoid more open types of debt. In addition, we investigate how the introduction of the doubly-entry bookkeeping in the municipalities affects the (improper) use of short-term liquidity credits. Finally, we point to the potential of the municipal Kassenkredit as a loophole in the new German constitutional debt brake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the publication activities of German and Austrian research Institutes in the time period 1989–2000. We find that publication activities in these institutes have increased over time, but that only 49 (of 518) articles were published in “Top 30” Journals. There are also two distinct groups of institutes concerning publication activities. Furthermore, findings indicate that Austrian institutes contributed substantially to publications and show high productivity, but they could not keep up with the increase in the last years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper exact criteria are defined in order to identify a “fair” remuneration of the labour power. Due to this principle a point of reference is provided which makes it possible to refer to a “just” level of wages. Thus we are entitled to judge the factual pay as “too high” or “too low”. Finally an assessment of empirical evidence concerning the factor shares in Germany is given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper summarizes the main results of a survey, which we conducted in May 2000 among German-speaking economists about their views on economics publications. Our results indicate that the world market for economics publications is not fully integrated across countries, but it appears to be at least partially segmented. Economics journals published in German-speaking countries appear to be relatively important for the work of German-speaking economists even though other journals have a better reputation among them. And although internationally reputed journals enjoy the highest reputation among German-speaking economists, domestic economic journals enjoy a higher reputation than would be justified according to international citation-based rankings. Especially older German-speaking economists tend to attach relatively high importance and reputation to domestic journals, while younger economists tend to favour international journals that focus on certain subfields of economics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attacks the widespread view that the latest (corporate) income tax reform in Germany was urgently needed to reduce the tax burden on the German economy. In the run-up to this tax reform, the public debate focused on nominal income tax rates and hence neglected the determination of the tax base. Empirical results on effective tax burdens in OECD countries show that a reform of German (corporate) capital taxation cannot be justified on the grounds of the tax burden. The international comparison of effective average tax rates shows that the corporate tax burden in Germany steadily declined from 1980 and was in 1996 lower than in most other industrialised countries. However, we argue that not only the actual tax burden but also the complexity of a tax system determines its international competitiveness. A German tax reform was – and still is – necessary due to the lasting complexity of the tax system and the relatively high tax burden on labour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews the discretionary fiscal policy in Germany during the economic crisis of 2008/2009. After discussing the arguments for and against a fiscal stabilization program, I discuss several features a reasonable program should have. Applying those criteria to the German fiscal package, I find that while it satisfies most of them, it has two major flaws. First, the fiscal stimulus is likely to come too late, and second, the political marketing of the policy was disastrous. As a consequence the policy is likely to stabilize the economy in the second half of 2009 and in 2010, but did little to soften the initial blow of the recession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses public debt differences across industrial countries with a special focus on Germany on the basis of political economy approaches. We are interested in identifying the empirically relevant theories in order to draw conclusions for Germany based on international differences in the preferences of the political agents and/or in the political or budgetary institutions. We discuss the recent developments in Germany – notably the reform of the distribution of competencies between the federal and the state level – and conclude that the current situation provides some opportunities to address the issue of public debt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the impact of EU structural policy on the economic development of German regions between 1995 and 2004. In this period East-German regions have converged, while regional disparities have been increasing in West-Germany. In addition East-German have caught up with poor western regions. However the overall gap between rich and poor has risen. Economic theory describes a trade-off between regional convergence and aggregate growth. Our empirical findings support this hypothesis. It is shown that the EU's regional transfers speed up convergence, but have a negative impact on long-run aggregate growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a panel of west German states ( ) for the period 1985 to 2002 we analyse potential effects of demographic change and political constellations on higher education spending, as suggested by recent literature on the political economy of the determination of public expenditures. We find empirical evidence for the hypothesis of a negative relationship between demographic aging and higher spending on public education. In contrast to the hypothesis of the classical partisan theory that implies higher public expenditures under leftist parties, we find that governments under conservative parties or a coalition between social democrats and conservatives spend more on public higher education than governments run by the social-democratic party alone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economics and historical analysis have much to learn from each other, a fact more and more neglected in research and theory building, and especially in university instruction in German-speaking countries. The lecture tries to illustrate this by demonstrating that certain economic relationships like Gresham's law asserting that bad money drives out good with fixed exchange rates have been valid at least since Aristophanes. Similarly, it is also shown that the substitution of bad by good money(Thiers’ law) and that similar magnitudes of overshooting of exchange rates, given flexible rates, during high inflation, have been present for at least four centuries. These results refute the hypothesis asserted by some well-known historians that there can be no economic laws valid in different and distant periods of history. And second, the evidence proves the usefulness of putting the hypotheses of economics to the test of history. For instance the observation that the maximal overshooting of flexible currencies showing moderate inflations has been about 30% since the seventeenth century casts doubt on modern theories asserting that such deviations are a consequence of the huge increase of capital movements in recent decades. Moreover, many open questions in economics can only be answered by looking at events which occurred in earlier historical periods. One such question is at which rates of inflation Thiers's law begins to operate, since it obviously does not work at moderate rates of inflation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In knowledge-based economies the effective use of new knowledge is the most important determinant of economic growth, and the capacity to generate and diffuse innovation forms the basis of comparative advantages. Transaction costs are the main reason why new knowledge takes so much time to spread around. Since clusters attract new ideas more easily, transaction costs may also cause regional divergence. European diffusion policies should therefore aim to minimize transaction costs for exchanging knowledge. It is proposed that this could be done by supporting extra-legal contractual relations guaranteed by third parties and by building up a rating system for trustworthiness of transaction partners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]