Entry and exit of firms is an item of major importance in economic policy. The purpose of this report is to investigate whether entry and exit of firms affects productivity. A model for total factor productivity is developed using a panel of regional data for the years 1988 up to and including 1996.

By stimulating entrepreneurship, the actual goal is especially to stimulate the people who will be successful after starting up their businesses. Considering the great variety within the group of (potential) entrepreneurs, there is need for specific insight in the factors that determine the...

It is generally acknowledged that the size-class distribution of enterprises in a country is an important characteristic of its economy. The EU countries are increasingly co-operating and adjusting to each other's needs in order to achieve optimal joint output. However, country differences -at...

Why does one person actually succeed in starting a business, while a second gives up, and a third is still trying? To answer this question, a longitudinal study was set up in which 330 nascent entrepreneurs (people setting up a business) were followed over a one-year period. After one year, 47%...

Using German district data we estimate the structural parameters of a new economic geography model as developed by Helpman (1998) and Hanson (1998, 2001a). The advantage of the Helpman-Hanson model is that it incorporates the fact that agglomeration of economic activity increases the prices of...

We construct a unique data set in order to analyze whether or not a large temporary shock has an impact on city growth. Following recent work by Davis and Weinstein (2002) on Japan, we take the strategic bombing of German cities during WWII as an example of such a shock, and analyze its impact...

Using German district data we estimate the structural parameters of a new economic geography model as developed by Helpman (1998) and Hanson (1998, 2001a). The advantage of the Helpman-Hanson model is that it incorporates the fact that agglomeration of economic activity increases the prices of...

In this article we assume two levels of skills and two classes of goods, one produced with a technology requiring high skills, the other produced with a technology that can be operated by both low and high skilled workers. Our model generates two distinct labour market regimes. In one regime we...

This paper presents a model of the life cycle that drives and is driven by R&D. In the model, firms have the option to improve their quality or to invest R&D resources in efficiency gains. Faced with this tradeoff, young firms opt for quality instead of efficiency improvements, whereas more...