Using unique recently released nationally representative high-quality longitudinal data at the enterprise level for Germany, this paper presents the first comprehensive evidence on the relationship between exports and profitability. It documents that the positive profitability differential of...

The relationship between individual firms’ export behaviour and firm performance has been studied extensively in the economic literature. However, most studies from the field of economics only distinguish between exporting and non-exporting companies, using the firms’ export status as a...

This paper studies the relationship between wages and the degree of firm heterogeneity in a given industry under different wage setting structures. To derive testable hypotheses, we set up a theoretical model that analyses the sensitivity of wages to the variability in productivity conditions in...

So far, there has been no data set which observes firm formations in Germany not only on a cross-sectional basis using one-time surveys, but continuously over a number of years. Therefore, the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW), KfW Bankengruppe and Creditreform set up a panel study of...

Using a large linked employer-employee data set, this paper studies the extent to which employers insure workers against transitory and permanent firm-level shocks. Particular emphasis is given to the question of whether the amount of wage insurance depends on the nature of industrial relations....

A recent survey of 54 micro-econometric studies reveals that exporting firms are more productive than non-exporters. On the other hand, previous empirical studies show that exporting does not necessarily improve productivity. One possible reason for this result is that most previous studies are...

Using a linked employer-employee data set, this paper analyses the relationship between firm profitability and wages. Particular emphasis is given to the question of whether the sensitivity of wages to firm-specific rents varies with collective bargaining coverage. To address this issue, we...

This paper studies the importance of employer-specific determinants in escaping low earnings in Germany. To address the initial conditions problem and the endogeneity of employer retention, we model (intra-firm) low-pay transitions using a multivariate Probit model that accounts for selection...

We investigate the interdependence of debt financing and R&D activities of young firms. Using micro-level data of the KfW/ZEW Start-up Panel, our estimation results show that firm characteristics are more important than personal characteristics of the founders for explaining young firms’...

Der vorliegende Beitrag liefert eine Zusammenfassung der Ergebnisse der Evaluation der Einführung des Mindestlohnes in der Abfallwirtschaft zum 01.01.2010. Die Evaluation setzt sich aus einem Branchenbild sowie einer kausalen Wirkungsanalyse des Mindestlohnes auf Basis einer...