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...

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...

The impact of environmental innovations on firm performance is ambiguous. On the one hand, regulatory-driven environmental innovation may impose additional costs to firms and lower their profits. On the other hand, eco-innovators could profit from lower uncertainty in innovation due to...

Non-technological innovation is an important element of firms' innovation activities that both supplement and complement technological innovation, i.e. the introduction of new products and new processes. We analyse the spread of nontechnological innovation in firms, their relation to...

The choice of the appropriate sales mode belongs to the firm’s most important strategic decisions after entering into a foreign market. Thus, it is important that the selected foreign sales mode best suits a firm’s available resources and capabilities. However, these resources and...

We examine impacts of different types of environmental innovations on firm profits. Following Porter’s (1991) hypothesis that environmental regulation can improve firms’ competitiveness we distinguish regulation induced and voluntary environmental innovations. We find that innovations which...

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...