This study represents a first attempt to empirically analyze the role of firm heterogeneity in regional business cycle behaviour. Working with monthly Italy's firms data and estimating a random effects ordered probit model, we first document sizable asymmetries in Northern and Southern firms...

We examine the impact of self-learning Artificial Intelligence (AI) on firm competition in a growth model with endogenous labor supply and heterogeneous agents. AI possesses the ability to improve autonomously through application, testing, and training. When firms incorporate AI into their...

As is well known, one of the major shortcomings of the New Keynesian model (NKM) with Calvo-type price setting is the lack of a microeconomic foundation of its most important building block - price stickiness. In this paper I investigate the ability of a monetary Customer Markets model to...

This paper investigates the incentives to invest in improving the quality (as distinguished to investment in a new activity) in telecommunication industry using the empirical example of wireless markets. We highlight that investment incentives are positively related to the potential for...

Using Chinese customs data for estimating a discrete choice model between potential export destinations, we present evidence for sequential export investment decisions of exporters driven by search and learning processes in foreign markets. Using a fixed effects conditional logit model, we...

Price discrimination is an extensively studied subject in monopoly behavior. Increasing profits, covering fixed cost and reducing distortions are reasons to sell a homogenous good at different prices. Price discrimination is however present also in oligopolistic markets. This paper is going to...

'Being international' has nearly become an undisputed aim for firms in a globalized world. Often, however, we do not know much about the actual performance consequences of firms' foreign market entries as well as exits. We apply a propensity score matching technique in combination with a...

Investments in R&D have been identified as a cornerstone for growth and competitive advantages of firms and whole economies. We investigate the role that a firm's main bank plays for its investment in R&D. Existing literature suggests that the inherent information asymmetries of R&D projects...

This paper suggests a potential rationale for the recent empirical finding that overconfident agents tend to self-select into more competitive environments (e.g. Dohmen and Falk, 2006). In particular, it shows that moderate overconfidence in a contest can improve the agent's performance relative...