Starting from the observation that all firms in Ireland (foreign and domestic in manufacturing and services industries) were hit by the crisis, the paper asks whether there is a difference in the behaviour of foreign and domestic firms. One hypothesis is that foreign multinationals are less...

In this paper we analyse the impact of governmental grant provision on plant performance. To this end we utilise rich information derived from three data sources for the manufacturing sector in Ireland, where grant provision has been an important part of the industrial policy. We use a matching...

We explore whether the introduction of trust based working hours is related to the subsequent innovation performance of firms. Employing a panel data set of over 5,000 German establishments, we implement a propensity score matching approach where we only consider firms that did not use trust...

An essential ingredient in models of career concerns is ex ante uncertainty about an agent's type. This paper shows how career concerns can arise even in the absence of any such ex ante uncertainty, if the unobservable actions that an agent takes influence his future productivity. By...

Incentive theory predicts that contract terms should respond to differences in agents’ productivities. Firms’ practice of anonymous contracts thus appears puzzling. We show that such a "one-size-fits-all" approach can be reconciled with standard agency theory if careers are marked by...

To innovate, employees need to develop novel ideas and coordinate with each other to turn these ideas into better products and services. Work outcomes provide signals about employees' abilities to the labor market, and therefore career concerns arise. These can both be 'good' (enhancing...

This paper looks at the effectiveness of R&D grants for Canadian plants that already benefit from R&D tax credits. Using a non-parametric matching estimator, we find that firms that benefited from both policy measures introduced more new products than their counterparts that only benefited from...

In this paper we evaluate the effectiveness of R&D tax incentives in Quebec, using manufacturing firm data from 1997 to 2003 originating from R&D surveys, annual surveys of manufactures and administrative data. The estimated price elasticity of R&D is -0.10 in the short run and -0.14 in the long...

Research and development is a crucial activity in the innovation process. Not every firm is in a position to overcome constraints to R&D, such as costs. Those that perform R&D must choose between forming a partnership with other firms, governmental organisations, universities or doing it...

This paper examines the impact of the Dutch R&D fiscal incentive program, known as WBSO, on R&D capital formation. Taking a factor-demand approach we measure the elasticity of firm R&D capital accumulation to its user cost. An econometric model is estimated using a rich unbalanced panel covering...