In a recent paper, Bloom et al. (2020) find evidence for a substantial decline in research productivity in the U.S. economy during the last 40 years. In this paper, we replicate their findings for China and Germany, using detailed firm-level data spanning three decades. Our results indicate that...

Green start-ups play a vital role in the needed transition towards more environmentally sustainable economies. Yet our understanding of why some founders start green ventures and others do not remains incomplete. We build on the cognitive and decision-making perspectives on start-ups...

Research suggests that public subsidies for newly founded firms have a positive effect on follow-on financing, in particular, Venture Capital (VC). This study differentiates between Government VC, Independent VC, Corporate VC, and Business Angels and shows that public subsidies are not relevant...

New business formation is a key driver of regional transformation and development. While we know that a region’s attractiveness for new businesses depends on its resources, infrastructure, and human capital, we know little about the role of local business networks in promoting or impeding the...

Start-up subsidies play an important role in supporting start-up innovation and performance. However, what characteristics help and hinder start-ups to seek start-up subsidies remains unclear. We study whether and how founder personality, as captured by the big five personality traits and...

The aim of this paper is to assess whether the impacts of real exchange rate undervaluation and domestic technological capabilities on growth are stable across development levels. On the one hand, a real exchange undervaluation measure is constructed based on the purchasing-power-parity theory...

An establishment can improve its productivity by hiring workers from more productive establishments. Then, how important is worker reallocation for aggregate productivity growth? To study this question, I develop a general equilibrium model where knowledge transmits as workers reallocate from...