Topic Industry

German Industry Returning to Cities

Is the German manufacturing industry, which has been leaving cities for less densely populated areas since World War II, being lured back into urban centers? This report analyses industrial start-ups from 2012 to 2016 and derives their preferred locations. The analysis shows that the start-up intensity in large agglomerations is on average almost 40 percent higher than in the other regions of Germany. ...

Research and Productivity – Manufacturing Companies in Cities Have an Advantage

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 ...

A Retrospective Evaluation of the GDF/Suez Merger: Effects on Gas Hub Prices

We present an ex-post analysis of the effects of GDF’s acquisition of Suez in 2006 created one of the world’s largest energy companies. We perform an econometric analysis, based on Difference-in-Difference techniques on the market for trading on the Zeebrugge gas hub in Belgium. Removing barriers to entry and facilitating access to the hub through ownership unbundling were an important part of the ...

Industry in the City

Effective European Antitrust: Does EC Merger Policy Generate Deterrence?

We estimate the deterrence effects of European Commission (EC) merger policy instruments over the 1990–2009 period. Our empirical results suggest phase-1 remedies uniquely generate robust deterrence as—unlike phase-1 withdrawals, phase-2 remedies, and preventions—phase-1 remedies lead to fewer merger notifications in subsequent years. Furthermore, the deterrence effects of phase-1 remedies work best ...

Weak Investment Poses a Threat to Industry in Europe

The global industrial structure has been in a constant state of change for some time now. While China’s share has steadily grown, Western industrialised countries have mostly experienced losses in industrial market share. Within Europe, the fates of the established industrialised nations have all played out very differently. For example, France and the UK have suffered massive losses, while Germany ...

German industry is spending more money on research and development than ever before

Manufacturing companies increased their expenditures by more than a fifth between 2010 and 2013 – research-intensive and large companies primarily responsible for the increase – development more dynamic in Germany than in other European countries In 2013, industrial companies in Germany spent a total of 57.2 billion EUR on research and development (R&D). This corresponds to an increase ...

The 4th Berlin IO Day

The Berlin IO Day is a one-day workshop sponsored by Berlin's leading academic institutions, including DIW Berlin, ESMT, Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Technische Universität Berlin, and WZB which takes place twice a year, in the Fall and in the Spring. The aim is to create an international forum for high quality research in Industrial Organization in the...

Effective European Antitrust: Does EC Merger Policy Generate Deterrence

We estimate the deterrence effects of European Commission (EC) merger policy instruments over the 1990-2009 period. Our empirical results suggest that phase-1 remedies uniquely generate robust deterrence as – unlike phase-1 withdrawals, phase-2 remedies, and preventions – phase-1 remedies lead to fewer merger notifications in subsequent years. Furthermore, the deterrence effects of phase-1 remedies ...

Functional Restructuring in Manufacturing: Increasing Importance of Production-Related Services

There are fewer and fewer people employed in the German manufacturing sector. Between 1999 and 2013, the number of people working in the industry fell from 7.7 million to 7.3 million. However, not all areas have been equally affected by the decline, rather, there has been a functional restructuring within the industry: while fewer people are being employed in production, employment in many production-related ...