This paper addresses three simple questions: how should the contribution of high-growth firms to job creation be measured? how much does this contribution vary across countries? to what extent does the cross-country variation depend on variation in the proportion of high-growth firms in the...

The basic principle governing the development of the accounting framework is the choice of appropriate comparators. Firstly, when measuring contributions to job creation, we should focus on just job creating firms, otherwise we are summing over contributions from firms with positive, zero, and...

The contribution of different-sized businesses to job creation continues to attract policymakers’ attention, however, it has recently been recognized that conclusions about size were confounded with the effect of age. We probe the role of size, controlling for age, by comparing the cohorts of...

The contribution of different-sized businesses to job creation continues to attract policymakers' attention, however, it has recently been recognized that conclusions about size were confounded with the effect of age. We probe the role of size, controlling for age, by comparing the cohorts of...

So far, there has been no data set which observes firm formations in Germany not only on a cross-sectional basis using one-time surveys, but continuously over a number of years. Therefore, the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW), KfW Bankengruppe and Creditreform set up a panel study of...

Die demografische Entwicklung in Deutschland wird auf mittlere Sicht zu einer nennenswerten Absenkung der bisher für das Gründungsgeschehen bedeutsamen Alterskohorten führen. Diese Studie zeigt durch eine Projektion der gegenwärtigen Strukturen in die Zukunft, dass die demografische...

30 Jahre nach dem Mauerfall gleicht sich die Unternehmenslandschaft im Osten zunehmend der Situation in den alten Bundesländern an. Laut der Studie vom ZEW – Leibniz-Zentrum für Europäische Wirtschaftsforschung stieg der Anteil großer Familienunternehmen am Gesamtbestand der...

This paper analyzes empirically the determinants of new born firms' initial size. As survival prospects of young firms tend to be linked to a firm's start-up size, a better understanding of the factors influencing start-up size is crucial. Most of the rare literature on initial firm size focuses...

The number of start-ups in Germany has been at a historically low level for a decade. While there was an annual average of 240,000 new start-ups between 1995 and 2004, the number has fallen significantly in the following years to around 165,000. One explanation is demographic change, but another...