Virtually all theories of economic growth predict a positive relationship between population size and productivity. In this paper I study a particular historical episode to provide direct evidence for the empirical relevance of such scale effects. In the aftermath of the Second World War about...

This empirical paper documents the relationship between composition of a firm's workforce (with a special focus on age and gender) and its performance (productivity and profitability) for a large representative sample of enterprises from manufacturing industries in Germany. We use unique newly...

Regelmäßig erhält das Institut für Mittelstandsforschung Anfragen aus dem Ausland nach einer statistischen Beschreibung des deutschen Mittelstandes. Aus diesem Grunde wurde 1998 erstmals eine statistische Beschreibung des Mittelstandes in englischer Sprache verfasst, die einen Überblick...

Mit dem vorliegenden Bericht werden die Ergebnisse der elften und zwölften Befragungswelle aus dem Frühjahr bzw. Herbst 2010 als Sammelband dargestellt. Alle weiteren Ergebnisse des BDI-Mittelstandspanels sind auf der Homepage des IfM Bonn dokumentiert. An der elften Befragungswelle zwischen...

Who should control the firm? What should be the firm's objective function? If contracts are incomplete, then the group of input providers that most needs their interests protected should be allocated control rights to the firm. Existing theories argue that the suppliers of capital are most in...

This paper examines the decision to enter the export market by German firms. While exports have played an important role in recent German business cycle movements, little is known about the export supply response of German firms. This paper presents a dynamic model of the export decision by a...

Universal banking is an alternative mechanism to a stock market for risk-sharing, for providing information for guiding investment, and for contesting corporate governance. In Germany, where the stock market has historically been small, banks hold equity stakes in firms and have proxy voting...