Institutional settings and the resulting incentive structures are crucial for economic development. The type of entrepreneurial activity and the entrepreneurial effort are especially dependent on underlying incentive structures. We argue that institutions with better incentive structures for...

This paper investigates the impact of implicit institutions on the decision to become an entrepreneur. Implicit institutions are here defined as mindsets that have developed as the result of norms and traditions and we expect they will have an influence on risk attitudes and opportunity...

The aim of this paper is to analyse the effects of knowledge management on the innovation success of firms in Germany. Using a matching procedure on data from the German Innovation Survey of 2003 ("Mannheim Innovation Panel"), we pair firms applying knowledge management with twin firms with...

All rulers face political competition, both from rivals within their state, and from other states to which their subjects may exit. In a simple model, both kinds of competition are substitutes. Internal competition (democracy) bene?ts citizens by allowing them to replace rent-seeking rulers. But...

We investigate the lead-lag relationship between growth of patent applications, growth of R&D, and growth of total sectoral employment for 270 German labour market regions over the period 1999-2005. Our unique panel dataset includes information on four two-digit industries, namely Chemistry,...

Parker and Van Praag (2009) showed, based on theory, that the group status of the profession 'entrepreneurship' shapes people's occupational preferences and thus their choice behavior. The current study focuses on the determinants and consequences of the group status of a profession,...

This paper discusses the link between R&D and productivity across the European industrial and service sectors. The empirical analysis is based on both the European sectoral OECD data and on a unique micro longitudinal database consisting of 532 top European R&D investors. The main conclusions...

Brazil was characterised by a marked process of trade liberalisation in the '90s, resulting in a dramatic increase in the volumes of exports and imports since the year 2000.Over the same period, the relative demand for skilled labour has increased substantially. To investigate whether these two...

In this paper we explore the relationship between the size of a country, the size of its cities, and the economic performance of the country. In order to do this we integrate three different literature, namely the literature on optimal country size, literature on historical processes of...

This paper deals with the topic of related R&D and innovation strategies of large firms. We ask what determines the diversity of a firm's product portfolio. More specifically, we try to explain large firms' expansion into new product markets driven by the characteristics of their technological...