This study reports results from an empirical investigation of business services sector firms that (start to) export, comparing exporters to firms that serve the national market only. We estimate identically specified empirical models using comparable enterprise level data from France, Germany,...

This paper contributes to the literature on international firm activities and firm performance by providing the first evidence on the link of productivity and both exports and foreign direct investment (fdi) in services firms from a highly developed country. It uses unique new data from Germany...

The nature of the relationship between employers and employees has been changing over the last decades, with firms increasingly relying on contractors, temp agencies and franchises rather than hiring employees directly. We investigate the impact of this transformation on the wage structure by...

Using panel data from Spain Farinas and Ruano (IJIO 2005) test three hypotheses from a model by Hopenhayn (Econometrica 1992): (H1) Firms that exit in year t were in t-1 less productive than firms that continue to produce in t. (H2) Firms that enter in year t are less productive than incumbent...

Economists have long been interested in analyzing entries and exits of establishments. In many countries administrative datasets provide an excellent source for detailed analysis on a fine and disaggregate level. However, administrative datasets are not without problems: restructuring and...

This study analyses employers' support for the introduction of industry-specific minimum wages as a cost-raising strategy in order to deter market entry. Using a unique data set consisting of 800 firms in the German service sector, we find some evidence that high-productivity employers support...

We study the labor market outcomes of a deregulation reform in Germany that removed licensing requirements to become self-employed in some occupations. Using longitudinal social security data, we implement a matched difference-in-differences design with entropy balancing to account for...

We provide a comprehensive empirical analysis of the links between international services outsourcing, domestic outsourcing, profits and innovation using plant level data. We find a positive effect of international outsourcing of services on innovative activity at the plant level. Such a...

We use unique plant-level data to study the link between the local availability of services and the decision of manufacturing firms to source materials from abroad. To guide our empirical analysis we develop a monopolistic-competition model of the materials sourcing decisions of heterogeneous...