The literature on wage bargaining so far mainly argues that unemployment benefits are relevant outside options for employees. This paper demonstrates that also a change in outside wage options drives wages in continuing jobs. The authors use the natural experiment of a crafts reform that reduces...

A series of seminal theoretical papers argues that poaching of employeesm ay hamper company-sponsored general training. However, the extent of poaching, its determinants and consequences, remains an open empirical question. We provide a novel empirical identification strategy for poaching and...

In this paper we investigate the factors that lead firms to cooperate with partners from foreign countries on innovation activities. Portuguese and German data from the harmonised Community Innovation Survey (CIS III) allow us to compare innovation cooperation behaviour of private firms in the...

This paper investigates to what extent the usage of information and communication technology (ICT) fosters innovation activities by facilitating more flexible organisational structures in firms. We distinguish between functional flexibility (the ability of workers to co-operate and take...

Entering host country networks of knowledge flows (new competencies, innovative technologies, and lead-market knowledge) is a major rationale of multinational firms for investing abroad. Foreign firms find it difficult to overcome cultural and social barriers which make their foreign engagements...

This paper provides a labour supply explanation to the observation that in Germany employment changes are asymmetric during the business cycle. Employment increases are slower, because the reservation wage of workers increases in times of job uncertainty. Workers are afraid in those periods of...

This paper analyses the determinants of employment reactions of firms when environmental innovations have been carried out. It differentiates hereby between employment increases and decreases. The data stem from a telephone survey covering more than 1500 firms in five European countries that...

The literature on skill-biased technological change concentrates on highly skilled and unskilled employees. It is unclear, however, if the employment opportunities of the majority of the labour force in Germany-employees with a degree from the dual apprenticeship system-increase or not. In...

Non-technological innovation is an important element of firms? innovation activities that both supplement and complement technological innovation, i.e. the introduction of new products and new processes. We analyse the spread of nontechnological innovation in firms, their relation to...