In this study we investigate the impact of early stage venture capital on innovation activities of Swiss start-ups. This is done based on a cohort of start-ups that is representative of all firms founded in Switzerland in 1996/97 as recorded by a census of the Swiss Federal Statistical Office...

Forecasting real economic activity poses a considerable challenge not only due to hard-to-predict events like the current financial crisis but also due to the fact that targeted variables often undergo significant revisions after their first publication. In this paper we report the results of a...

This paper uses a panel data set of microfinance institutions (MFI) across the world to compare several identification strategies of cost efficiency and economies of scale. Concretely, we contrast the non-parametric Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) with the Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) and...

This study uses data of a representative sample of Swiss firms to assess the effectiveness of policy measures directed at the diffusion of energy effcient technology (EET). Three different outcome variables (number of EET applications implemented, CO2 reduction, and EET related investment) are...

We investigate the updating behavior of individual consumers regarding their short and long-run inflation expectations. Utilizing the University of Michigan Survey of Consumer’s rotating panel microstructure, we can identify whether individuals adjust their inflation expectations over a period...

This paper develops a model of the relationship between the age of a dictator and economic growth. In the model a dictator must spread the resources of the economy over his reign but faces mortality and political risk. The model shows that if the time horizon of the dictator decreases, either...

Business Tendency Surveys (BTS) continue to be an important source of timely information on business cycles in many countries. We address quality of economic survey data by uncovering the relation between unit non-response and participant characteristics on company respectively respondent level....

The relevance of services FDI strongly increased over the last two decades. As goods and services differ with respect to important characteristics, one may expect that the determinants of internationalisation are not identical in manufacturing and the service sector. However, there is...

This paper presents a composite leading indicator for the Swiss business cycle corresponding to the growth rate cycle concept. It is the result of a complete overhaul of the KOF Economic Barometer that has been published by the KOF Swiss Economic Institute on a monthly basis since 1976. In line...

Keynes’s essay “Relative Movements of Real Wages and Output” is widely believed to be an important amendment to his General Theory because, in this essay, Keynes relaxed his core assumption of decreasing marginal returns to labour. Non-decreasing marginal returns, however, do not sit...