The WIFO Business Cycle Survey serves as an important early-indication tool for the economic situation in Austria. Using a Markov regime-switching model, it is possible to determine at an early point in time whether the business cycle is in its upward or downward mode. Regime probabilities are...

WIFO has been conducting its Business Cycle Survey since 1954. Today, some 1,600 businesses, with altogether more than 200,000 employees, are participating in the survey. The findings of the survey are analysed to obtain leading indicators of the state of the Austrian economy. The analysis shows...

In 2013, the cash-flow-to-sales ratio of the Austrian manufacturing sector reached an estimated 9.0 percent, a value significantly below the long-run average of 9.6 percent. The persistently muted performance of the manufacturing sector has affected the cash-flow-to-sales ratio, which declined...

We analyse cross-border co-operation of Austrian firms with CEEC partners. Firm size, previous experience with co-operation and depth of integration with the most important partner are more important determinants of co-operation than distance to the closest potential partner. Firms with...

This paper analyses the co-operation activities of small Austrian firms with the CEEC and compares them to those of larger firms. Small firms are less likely to engage in cross-border co-operation than larger firms, more likely to co-operate in ownership based forms of co-operation but less...

We explore differences between two measurement concepts of worker flows widely used in the literature referred to as the turnover and reallocation concepts. We find that measuring worker flows by the turnover concept leads to substantially (about 5 percent of total employment) higher worker flow...

This paper analyses the effects of previous enlargements of the European Union on the regional structure of production. Focusing on regional development five years before and seven years after integration, we find relatively small and heterogeneous effects. For the addition of Greece a robust...

Two recent studies published in "Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik" are used to discuss methods to develop bibliometric analyses and rankings of economic research institutions. According to them, standardisation methods using the number of staff or university graduates may have a crucial...

The evolution of higher moments of the firm size distribution so far seems to be neglected in the empirical firm growth literature. Based on GMM estimates, this paper introduces simple Wald tests to investigate whether the firm size distribution converges in both the second and third central...