The creation of spinoff companies is often promoted as a desirable mechanism for transferring knowledge and technologies from research organizations to the private sector for commercialization. In the promotion process, policymakers typically treat these “university” spinoffs like industry...

A number of studies have found that firms provide less training if they are located in regions with strong labor market competition. This finding is usually interpreted as evidence of a higher risk of poaching in these regions. Yet, there is no direct evidence that regional competition is...

This paper analyses the risk of unemployment, unemployment duration and the risk of long-term unemployment immediately after apprenticeship graduation. Unemployed apprenticeship graduates constitute a large share of unemployed youth in Germany but unemployment incidence within this group is...

This paper addresses the puzzle how employers that invest in general human capital can gain an information advantage with respect to the ability of their employees when training is certified by credible external institutions. We apply an established model from the employer-learning literature...

This paper examines how university research alliances and other cooperative links with universities contribute to startup employment growth. We argue that “scientific absorptive capacity” at the startup is critical for reaping the benefits from university research alliances, but not...

Do academic scientists bring valuable human capital to the companies they found or join? If so, what are the particular skills that compose their human capital and how are these skills related to firm performance? This paper examines these questions using a particular group of academic...

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. We use the natural experiment of a crafts reform that reduces outside...

International student exchange has become an important part of university-level studiesand the EU plans to increase it significantly. Weanalyze how international student exchange affects students’ academic human capital. Usingdetailed student-level data fromfour faculties (Economics and...

This paper investigates the short-term costs and benefits of apprenticeship training in Germany. It calls into question the popular stylised fact that apprenticeship training always leads to net costs during the apprenticeship period. We analyse the impact of the proportion of different...