This paper explores the effects of foreign direct investment, measured by mergers and acquisitions, on domestic entrepreneurial entry. We use a micro‐panel of more than two thousand individuals disaggregated by industry in seventy countries including both developed and developing economies,...

Many entrepreneurs start their ventures while retaining jobs in wage employment; this phenomenon is called hybrid entrepreneurship. Little is known about the entry modes (new venture start-up vs. business takeover) of hybrid entrepreneurs. Our study aims to close this gap by investigating the...

The lack of information is a relevant obstacle to the export activity of small and medium enterprises. This paper analyzes whether banks can support firms’ export by reducing informational asymmetries about foreign markets. We exploit a large sample of Italian firms for which we merge custom...

This paper uses a two-country model with integrated markets for high-skilled labor to analyze the opportunities and incentives for national governments to provide higher education. Countries can differ in productivity, and education is financed through a wage tax, so that brain drain affects the...

This paper concerns public input provision as an instrument for redistribution under international outsourcing by using a model-economy comprising two countries, North and South, where firms in the North may outsource part of their low-skilled labor intensive production to the South. We consider...

We document that trust in public institutions ﾖ and particularly trust in banks, business and government ﾖ has declined over recent years. U.S. time series evidence suggests that this partly reflects the pro-cyclical nature of trust in institutions. Cross-country comparisons reveal a clear...

Nowcasting has been a challenge in the recent economic crisis. We introduce the Toll Index, a new monthly indicator for business cycle forecasting and demonstrate its relevance using German data. The index measures the monthly transportation activity performed by heavy transport vehicles across...

This study analyzes real wage cyclicality for male full-time workers within employer-employee matches in Germany over the period 1984-2004. Five different wage measures are compared: the standard hourly wage rate; hourly wage earnings including overtime and bonus pay; the effective wage, which...

Using administrative data on individual workers' employment history and firms, we investigate the cyclicality of worker flows on the German labour market. Focusing on heterogeneities on both sides of the labour market, we find that small firms hire mainly unemployed workers, and that they do so...

Immigrants have figured prominently in U.S. economic growth for decades, but the recent recession hit them hard. Immigrantsﾒ labor market outcomes began deteriorating even before the recession was officially underway, largely as a result of the housing bust. An analysis of employment and...