Empirical work studying the industry life cycle highlights the role of knowledge in various forms on the durations firms survive in the industry. This research leaves open the influence of historical events, which are reflected in macroeconomic factors like income, inflation, exports and...

We apply various refinements of survival regression to assess the results of some basic specifications based on product life cycle theory for the case of a data set of the German automobile industry. The methods applied pay attention to biases in the coefficient estimates and the standard...

In the German automobile industry the vertical integration, as an indicator of value added, is on average low. Beyond the argument of relative high labour costs for manufacturing, several specific reasons for the level of vertical integration, linked to the flexibility of business administration...

In the German automobile industry the vertical integration, as an indicator of value added, is on average low. Beyond the argument of relative high labour costs for manufacturing, several specific reasons for the level of vertical integration, linked to the flexibility of business administration...

Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (GSOEP), we analyze whether necessity entrepreneurs differ from opportunity entrepreneurs in terms of self-employment duration. Using univariate statistics, we find that opportunity entrepreneurs remain in self-employment longer than...

Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (GSOEP), we analyze whether necessity entrepreneurs differ from opportunity entrepreneurs in terms of self-employment duration. Using univariate statistics, we find that opportunity entrepreneurs remain in self-employment longer than...

The influence of innovative entrants on incumbents is considered important for technological change. We analyze this influence for the global transition towards alternative technology vehicles (ATVs). Our results indicate that entrants' ATV-related knowledge accumulation stimulates average...

When did Germany become economically integrated? Within the framework of a gravity model, based on a new data set of about 40,000 observations on trade flows within and across the borders of Germany over the period 1885-1933, I explore the geography of trade costs across Central Europe. There...

Was Germany ever united? Given the historical circumstances of Germany's unification in the 19th century there is no obvious answer to this question. But such an answer can affect the prospects of the post-1989 unification process, and beyond this of European integration. We provide an...