This paper explores the distribution of the technical efficiencies across German manufacturing industries and looks at the association of technical efficiency to other economic categories. Aggregating 1995 to 2001 firm-level data yields an unbalanced panel with 241 cross-sections (industries)....

In this paper, we investigate the link between optimal level of leverage and macroeconomic uncertainty. Using the model of firm's value maximization, we show that as macroeconomic uncertainty increases, captured by an increase in the variability of industrial production or inflation, firms...