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...

The sensitivity of innovation activities with respect to the business cycle is often assumed to be small. In this paper the hypothesis on cyclical dependence of innovation activities is tested for firms in the German manufacturing, and additionally for SMEs. To this end firms’ innovation...

There appears to be an ambivalent dimension in innovation strategies: timing. When is an innovation ready for the market or when is the market ready for the innovation? This paper empirically investigates the determinants of a firm’s decision to become a first mover or a follower in innovation...

The effect of innovations on employment at the firm level is theoretically ambiguous. The present paper analyses this relationship using panel data on German start-up firms as well as German patent data. It employs different indicators of patenting activity. By applying fixed-effects and...

In the 1990s, patenting schemes changed in many respects: upcoming new technologies accelerated the shift from price competition towards competition based on technical inventions, a worldwide surge in patenting took place, and the patent thicket arose as a consequence of strategic patenting....

This paper investigates to what extent the usage of information and communication technology (ICT) fosters innovation activities by facilitating more flexible organisational structures in firms. We distinguish between functional flexibility (the ability of workers to co-operate and take...

The savings banks’ decision to distribute profits among their public owners is strongly regulated by law in order to guarantee their adequate funding via retained profits. However, the legal scope is reluctantly exhausted. In this study we examine the determinants of the savings banks’...

The paper tests empirically the role of knowledge stocks to explain the regional distribution of Germany’s biotechnology founders. We present an unique approach to highlight the role of knowledge spillovers as we differentiate according the local embeddedness and research affinity of founders....