This paper investigates how patent applications and grants held by new ventures improve their ability to attract venture capital (VC) financing. We argue that investors are faced with considerable uncertainty and therefore rely on patents as signals when trying to assess the prospects of...

This paper develops a two-industry model of R&D. A monopolist supplier sells an intermediate good to an oligopolistic buyer industry where firms compete in quantity and quality-enhancing R&D. The supplier can contribute to downstream product improvements by creating spillover knowledge which...

This paper uses a new firm panel data set to explore the relationship between R&D and productivity in German manufacturing firms for the period from 1979 to 1989. The results confirm the view that R&D is an important determinant of productivity growth. In the cross-section, the elasticity of...

Advocates of apprenticeship programs often argue as if it is simply a matter of historical accident which has hindered such investment by U.S. firms. This paper explores the structure of incentives undergirding the German system of apprenticeship training. First, we describe three...

This paper studies the effect of regional spillovers on the rate of firm formation in two major West German industries for the time period from 1989 to 1993. I exploit regional variations in firm formation at the county level to identify the effects of historically given industry structure and...

Using a newly constructed panel dataset of German enterprises, I estimate R&D and capital investment equations for the time period from 1990 to 1994. Simple accelerator specifications indicate considerable sensitivity of R&D and investment to cash flow for relatively small firms. Much of this...

Im Auftrag des Bundesministeriums für Forschung und Technologie führt das ZEW seit 1993 im Rahmen des Projektes 'Erhebungen zur Beschreibung des Innovationsverhaltens der deutschen Wirtschaft' umfangreiche Unternehmensbefragungen durch. Mit dem Mannheimer Innovationspanel wird in mehrfacher...

In this paper, we report results of an ongoing empirical analysis of firm dynamics in East Germany. After discussing specifics of a newly available data set with information on more than 100.000 firms, we analyze patterns of business starts and failures. Furthermore, we present preliminary...

In this paper we discuss determinants of firm survival and growth in Germany within its pre-1989 boundaries. We develop our central hypotheses on the basis of a simple theoretical model describing the self-selection of heterogeneous entrepreneurs into particular legal forms, and the implications...

Die von der Regierungskoalition vorgelegten Gesetzentwürfe zur Unternehmenssteuerreform 1999, 2000 und 2002 wurden von Zentrum für Europäische Wirtschaftsforschung (ZEW) und Lehrstuhl Prof. Jacobs hinsichtlich ihrer ökonomischen Auswirkungen auf den Unternehmenssektor sowie einiger...