This paper focuses on the pre-establishment period of start-ups in industrial districts. The industrial architecture is what I call a "rationed agglomeration" in which some entrepreneurs gather around an established firm while other entrepreneurs in the same business stand alone. In a rationed...

Do private banks act as hard-nosed bankers when firms get financially distressed compared to public banks that have the mandate to support regional economy? For German firms in the period 2000-2005, I find that the probability of leaving the market after financial distress is higher for firms...

This paper analyses fundamental location factors for the financial industry by investigating the economic significance of market participants' assessments of location factors and country-specific characteristics over time. A unique data set allows studying the locational attractiveness of...

The ongoing discussion of U.S.-Japanese trade relations suggests that national differences such as in the institutional environment may be relevant for assessing international trade policies. However, economic trade theory often assumes countries to be organized around common notions of complete...

When contributing content on large online platforms, producers of user-generated content have to decide where to contribute. On a complex and dynamic platform like Wikipedia, this decision is expected to depend on the way the content is organized. We analyse whether the hyperlinks on Wikipedia...

This article documents a new value creation function of private equity investors who carry out buy-and-build strategies. Buy-and-build strategies constitute an initial acquisition of a firm, serving as a 'platform', by a private equity investor and follow-on private equity-backed acquisitions...

When contributing content on large online platforms, producers of user-generated content have to decide where to contribute. On a complex and dynamic platform like Wikipedia, this decision is expected to depend on the way the content is organized. We analyse whether the hyperlinks on Wikipedia...

Who does, and who should initiate costly certification by a third party under asymmetric quality information, the buyer or the seller? Our answer - the seller - follows from a nontrivial analysis revealing a clear intuition. Buyer-induced certification acts as an inspection device,...

Syndication, which is a joint realization of one project/one investment by several capital providers, is a long existing phenomenon that plays a central role in many financial market segments. Within this paper we develop a theoretical model focusing on the dynamic aspect of syndication, namely...

The Internet is receiving increasing attention as a medium for technology transfer between public research and the enterprise sector. Based on a survey of public research units in natural sciences and engineering in Germany, we analyse the determinants of firm contacts established via the...