We use Japanese firm-level data to examine how a firm?s productivity affects its choice of foreign-market entry strategy. We study a sequence of decisions, starting with the choice between exporting and foreign direct investment (FDI). In the case of FDI, the firm faces two options: greenfield...

Die Ergebnisse der kürzlich veröffentlichten PISA-Studie (OECD 2001) über den Bildungsstand der jüngeren Generation haben nicht nur zu einem Nachdenken über die Ursachen der für Deutschland sehr enttäuschenden Ergebnisse geführt, sondern auch die Diskussion über die Bedeutung von...

Many governments offer significant inducements to attract inward investment, motivated by the expectation of spillover benefits. Foreign direct investment (FDI) is generally perceived as the best channel for technology transfer, not only across national boundaries but also between firms - in...

The paper focuses on the impact of business related R&D spending on input factor productivity (IFP) using international patent applications as a technology diffusion channel. Considering the relationship between research and productivity, international patent pattern reflects the link between...

This paper proposes a transactions cost theory of total factor productivity. In a world with asymmetric information and transactions costs, effort, and thus productivity, must be induced by incentive schemes. Labor contracts trade off the marginal benefits and the marginal costs of effort. The...

Compared to other Western European countries, Germany was less successful in attracting FDI in the 1990s. The falling behind in inward-FDI should be no problem if foreign-owned firms (FoFs) were only substitutes for indigenous firms. However, to the extent they differ significantly in terms of...

This paper analyses the flexibility decision of firms. In particular we (a) ask whether the flexibility choice is influenced by market structure (concentration, market growth, ...), (b) compare the firms' actual choices with welfare maximising flexibility decisions (c) investigate the...

A detailed decomposition of the sources of the Total Factor Productivity (TFP) growth index within an output distance function framework was carried out, looking at the following components: technical change, change in technical efficiency, scale component, and violations of the profit...

In der vorliegenden Arbeit werden die Produktivitätswirkungen von fünf unterschiedlichen Formen betrieblicher Zusatzleistungen analysiert. Als Datensatz wird das IAB-Betriebspanel aus dem Jahr 2000 verwendet. Im Ergebnis bestätigt diese Arbeit die Anreiztheorien, welche einen positiven...

Since the German re?unification in 1990, Eastern Germany is a transition economy. After a phase of catching up of productivity with respect to Western Germany from 1991 to 1996, the growth rates in the producing sector have dropped below the Western German ones since 1997. This study...