We use comparable micro level panel data for 14 countries and a set of identically specified empirical models to investigate the relationship between exports and productivity. Our overall results are in line with the big picture that is by now familiar from the literature: Exporters are more...

Firm heterogeneity explains the productivity driven selection mechanism that determines aggregate productivity growth within industries. This paper empirically demonstrates that ICT has a robust impact on firm heterogeneity only when ICT is used intensively and jointly with specific ICT...

This paper analyzes the persistence of firms' exporting behavior in a panel of West German manufacturing firms. Dynamic binary choice models allow us to distinguish between true and spurious state dependence in firm performance. Using random effects models as well as a recent fixed effect...

This paper considers the effect of different firm leadership on the innovative performance of firms from seven EU countries. We investigate whether owner-led or manager-led firms achieve a larger share of their turnover with product innovations. Economic theory does not propose clear answers to...

The paper analyses the impact of venture capital finance on growth and innovation activities of young German firms. Among other variables, our panel of firm data includes data on venture capital funding and patent applications. With a statistical matching procedure we draw an adequate control...

During the last 20 years, R&D and innovation activities in the service sector have clearly increased. Especially business services are believed to be one of the main drivers of technical changes and economic progress. Looking at the labour indices calculated over the period from 1982 to 1996 one...

This paper empirically studies the impact of the adoption of open source software (OSS) on firms' labor productivity and innovative behavior. Using a representative sample of German firms, the results show that the adoption of OSS operating systems for servers and general OSS applications has no...

Trademarking firms are more productive, generate higher profits, and have a better survival rate. Trademarking firms are in one word more successful, which might motivate non-trademarking firms to adopt a trademark strategy. But this seems not to be the case. The proportion of trademarking firms...

This paper analyses market efficiency and the role of the virtual location in digital markets using a data set containing more than 23,000 price observations from the online market for contact lenses as well as detailed information about online retailer and product characteristics. The data...

We explore the design of self-financing tax-subsidy schemes to solve hold-up problems in environmental regulation. The announcement of the tax rate seems to be preferable to solve hold-up problems with respect to the investment in environmental R&D. In contrast, only the announcement of the...