We identify the impact of local firm concentration on incumbent performance in a historic setting that has quasi-experimental characteristics. When Germany was divided after World War II, many firms in the machine tool industry fled the Soviet-occupied zone to prevent expropriation. We show that...

Identifying the impact of local firm concentration on individual firm performance is likely to produce a selection bias related to the positive effects of local concentration if agglomeration economies and natural advantages coincide. We overcome this problem by exploiting exogenous variation...

We test whether new firms locate close to incumbent firms of the same industry. Tendencies to coagglomerate may explain the general wisdom that industry location is highly persistent over time. We perform separate analysis for East and West Germany which enables us to study two integrated areas...

We incorporate the concept of social identity into entrepreneurship and analyze the determinants of having entrepreneurial intentions. We argue that an entrepreneurial identity results from an individual’s socialization. This could be parental influence but, as argued in this paper, also peer...