U.S. companies are often criticized for being overly short-term oriented. This paper documents that those criticisms have a long history, going back at least thirty-five years. The paper then considers the implications of sustained short-termism for corporate profits, venture capital investments...

This paper examines executive turnover -- both for management and supervisory boards - - and its relation to firm performance in the largest companies in Germany in the 1980s. The management board turns over slowly -- at a rate of 10% per year -- implying that top executives in Germany have...

In modern knowledge driven economies, firms are increasingly aware that individual and collective knowledge is a major factor of economic performance. The larger the firms and the stronger their connection with technology intensive industries, the more are they likely to set up knowledge...

This paper analyzes the relationship between output, employment, and physical and R&D capital, for a sample of 133 large U.S. firms covering the years 1966 through 197. In the cross sectional dimension, there is a strong relationship between firm productivity and the level of its R&D...

This paper studies the impact of process and product innovations introduced by firms on employment growth in these firms. A simple model that relates employment growth to process innovations and to the growth of sales separately due to innovative and unchanged products is developed and estimated...

We study how firm characteristics evolve from early business plan to initial public offering to public company for 49 venture capital financed companies. The average time elapsed is almost 6 years. We describe the financial performance, business idea, point(s) of differentiation, non-human...

This paper presents clinically-based studies of two acquisitions that received very different stock market reactions at announcement one positive and one negative. Despite the differing market reactions, we find that ultimately neither acquisition created value overall. In exploring the reasons...