Based on data from the German Cost Structure Census from approximately 39,000 companies between the years of 1992 to 2003, we investigate how outsourcing activities affected the return on sales of companies. We find that outsourcing activities, particularly by large companies, significantly...

East German wages have been below the West German wage level since unification. Moreover, the East-West wage gap implied by the contractual wages specified in collective wage agreements is drifting ever further apart from the wage gap in terms of effective wages. This paper looks at the role of...

The purpose of this paper is to sort out firm-related differences from effects that result from different economic structures. A non-parametric decomposition is used to analyse firm level difference between the wage spread in the two major regions of unified Germany. If firm-specific effects...

Die Gestaltung der Produktpalette war ein zentrale Herausforderung für ostdeutsche Unternehmer nach der Wende. Spezialisierung oder diffuse Generalistenstrategie war die Frage. Welche Strategie sich durchgesetzt hat und ob der Anschluss an den Westen gelang, wird in dieser Arbeit erstmals auf...

After 20 years of transition from an economy integrated in an exchange scheme of planned economies towards an open market economy based on the ideas of competition, we ask whether East German firms succeeded in finding their place in the international division of labour. We concentrate on the...

Using firm-level panel data from the German cost structure survey over the period 1992 to 2000, our empirical analysis shows that firms that increased material inputs relative to internal labor costs performed better in terms of gross operating surplus than other firms. However, firms that...