This paper uses an oligopoly model with heterogeneous firms to examine how an industry adjusts to rising import competition. The model predicts that in the short run the least efficient firms in the industry become inactive, surviving firms face a fall in output, mark-ups and profits, and the...

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...

Empirical investigations with enterprise level data from official statistics often use the averagewage as a proxy variable for the qualification of the workforce, mostly due to the lack ofdetailed information on the qualification of the employees. This paper uses unique newlyavailable data for...

This paper documents the relationship between foreign ownership and firm survival forenterprises in Germany using unique tailor-made new representative data that mergeinformation from surveys performed by the Statistical Offices, from administrative datacollected by the Tax Authorities and from...

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

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

Using unique recently released nationally representative high-quality data at the plant level,this paper presents the first comprehensive evidence on the relationship between productivityand size of the export market for Germany, a leading actor on the world market formanufactured goods...<br<

Reliable information on the characteristics of exporting and non-exporting firms is important to guide theorists and policy makers in an evidence based way. This holds true especially for Germany, a leading actor on the world markets for goods and services. This paper makes three contributions...

This paper investigates four cohorts of firms from German manufacturing industries that started to export in the years between 1998 and 2002 and follows them over the five years after the start. Export starters are a rare species and they are small on average compared to incumbent exporters....

Heterogeneous firms are at the heart of both the New New International Trade Theory and the Micro-econometrics of International Firm Activities. One important aim of micro-econometric studies is to uncover stylized facts that hold over space and time, and that can both inspire theoretical models...