This paper investigates the causal relationship between firms' research and development expenditures (R&D) and their investments into fixed capital. The literature provides two contrasting views in this respect. The first view holds that a firm's research activity causes, via the creation of...

This paper investigates how the macroeconomic business cycle impacts the empirical relation between firms' innovations and their sales growth rates. Based on firm-level panel data over the time period 1995-2014, the paper finds no visible sales growth differentials between firms in booming...

This paper investigates the causal effect of funding research and development (R&D) cooperation with public universities on the performance of firms. We use comprehensive firm-level panel data from Switzerland that spans from 2010 to 2022 and covers a broad set of variables including the...

In a first step, we developed based on existing theoretical and empirical literature a series of hypotheses with respect to the relative importance of possible determinants of exploration and exploitation of knowledge in collaboration with universities and tested them on Swiss firm data. In a...

There is growing evidence that firms increasingly adopt open innovation practices. In this paper we investigate the impact of two such external knowledge acquisition strategies, buy and cooperate, on firm's product innovation performance. Taking a direct (productivity) approach, we test for...

In this paper, the parent firms' choice of FDI locations is analyzed based on a unique firm-level dataset for Swiss MNEs. The data allows a detailed characterization of parent companies, their foreign subsidiaries and the two-way trade flows between parent companies and foreign affiliates. In...

While previous studies on mergers and acquisitions (M&As) mostly relied on large firms, our study is based on a sample that includes all Swiss M&As that took place in the period 2006-2008, mostly of which have been SMEs. We investigate the firm characteristics that determine the innovation and...

This paper investigates the post-merger performance effects of mergers and acquisitions (M&As). Our study is based on a representative sample that includes all Swiss M&As that took place in the period 2006-2008. In contrast to previous studies in this field most of our M&As took place between...

In this paper we demonstrate the complexity that regulates the innovation-exports nexus. In particular we argue that innovation and exports should be treated as latent variables in order to account for as many facets possible thus, accounting for multifaceted heterogeneity. In this context, the...

Human resource management (HRM) practices are generally expected to stimulate a firm's innovation performance. However, which of these practices do really pay off? Based on a unique dataset that includes detailed information for both a firm's innovation activities and different types of HRM...