This paper investigates the factors that explain the level of technical efficiency of a firm. In our empirical analysis, we use a unique sample of about 35,000 firms in 256 industries from the German Cost Structure Census over the years 1992-2004. We estimate the technical efficiency of the...

Der Beitrag arbeitet die Heterogenität von Unternehmen innerhalb von Branchen hinsichtlich ihrer technischen Effizienz heraus. Datengrundlage sind die Mikro-Daten der Kostentrukturerhebung im Verarbeitenden Gewerbe in Deutschland. Die technische Effizienz wird im Rahmen der Schätzung einer...

If the future market wage is uncertain, engaging in long-term employment is risky, with the risk depending on how regulated the labor market is. In our experiment long-term employment can result either from offering long-term contracts or from repeatedly and mutually opting for rematching....

Facing a stochastic market wage, which is independent of their own hiring policy, employers offer contracts specifying ï¬xed wage, revenue share and employment duration. In ongoing employment relations it depends on the treatment whether ï¬xed wages can be only increased or also decreased....

Do firm entry and exit improve the competitiveness of regions? If so, is this a universal mechanism or is it contingent on the type of industry or region in which creative destruction takes place? This paper analyses the effect of firm entry and exit on the competitiveness of regions, measured...

The theory predicts that spinoffs of successful parents are more successful than others. The success of the parents can be measured in two ways, either in terms of their survival duration or concerning their innovative activity. In this paper, the survival chances of spinoffs in the German...

We examine whether founders’ backgrounds influence new firm survival in the early years after start-up. We develop hypotheses linking founders' backgrounds to pre-entry capabilities associated with entrepreneurial human capital, highlighting the cases of spin-offs and habitual...

Based on an improved and extended database, the Establishment History Panel, we extend the analysis of Fritsch & Weyh (2006) by investigating the development of employment in German start-up cohorts for the period 1976 to 2004. We conïfirm the typical pattern of an initial increasing and then...

This paper investigates how the survival of firms over the industry life cycle is affected by different kinds of knowledge, namely post-entry experience, pre-entry experience, and knowledge acquired by innovative activity. Therefore, a statistical survival analysis is performed for the German...

In this paper the profitability of German car manufacturing firms is related to different indicators for the knowledge incorporated in the firms since the birth of the industry in 1886. The analysis is performed with an ordered probit model, where information about the kind of exit of the firms...