This study presents the first empirical test with German establishment level data of a hypothesis derived by Helpman et al. (2004) in a model that explains the decision of heterogeneous firms to serve foreign markets either through exports of foreign direct investment: only the more productive...

While the role of exports in promoting growth in general, and productivity in particular, has been investigated empirically using aggregate data for countries and industries for a long time, only recently have comprehensive longitudinal data at the firm level been used to look at the extent and...

This paper uses a large plant level panel data set from Germany and a matching approach to look for casual effects of starting to export on plant performance. We find positive effects on growth of employment, labor productivity, and wages.

According to the German disability law, or Schwerbehindertengesetz, either six percent of all jobs in an establishment must be occupied by disabled employees or the firm has to pay a penalty of DM 200 per month for every job under consideration. This note reports results from the first...

From a model by Hopenhayn, three hypotheses can be derived: (H1) Firms that exit in year t were less productive in t-1 than firms that continue to produce in t. (H2) Firms that enter in year t are less productive than incumbent firms in year t. (H3) Surviving firms from an entry cohort were more...