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...

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

This study reports results from an empirical investigation of business services sector firmsthat (start to) export, comparing exporters to firms that serve the national market only. Weestimate identically specified empirical models using comparable enterprise level data fromFrance, Germany, and...

An emerging literature on international activities of heterogeneous firms documents thatexporting firms are more productive than firms that only sell on the national market. Thispositive exporter productivity premium shows up in a large number of empirical studies aftercontrolling for observed...

This paper uses unique new data for German manufacturing enterprises from matchedregular surveys and a special purpose survey to investigate the causal effect of relocation ofactivities to a foreign country on various dimensions of firm performance. Enterprises thatrelocated activities abroad in...

In this paper we explore the relationship between the individual decision to become anentrepreneur and the institutional context. We pinpoint the critical roles of property rights andthe size of the state sector for entrepreneurial activity and test the relationships empirically bycombining...

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...

We model decisions with respect to formality or informality for entrepreneurs in a newindustry for a developing economy. We show that informality allows a leader to explore,without significant sunk costs, the potential profitability of the industry; that is, informality maybe a stepping stone,...

Using unique new data and a recently introduced non-linear decomposition technique this paper shows that the huge difference in the propensity to export between West and East German plants is to a large part due to differences in firm size human capital intensity..