For firms acting in technological niches the expansion into foreign markets can be a way to increase sales and to thus to recover initial sunk costs over a shorter time frame. Our research, based on survey data for nearly 600 British and German high-tech start-ups, examines whether...

We examine the impact of technological product advantages, prior international experience of the management, firm size and age, country differences, and sunk costs as determinants of the timing of international market entry. The timing of internationalisation is analysed using ?event history...

The paper analyses the impact of venture capital finance on growth and innovation activities of young German firms. Among other variables, our panel of firm data includes data on venture capital funding and patent applications. With a statistical matching procedure we draw an adequate control...

Multivariate Tobit models are estimated using German cross?sectional data to test whether strategic complementarities exist between expenditures in four different types of ICT?components. If two ICT?components are complements, they are correlated (provided that agents act rationally)....

The goal of this paper is to point out the role played by private equity investors (venture-capital companies and corporate investors) in the emergence of a new biotechnology industry in Germany in the second half of the 90?s. This analysis takes into account the different business models and...

This study analyses relative sectoral specialisation of EU regions on the basis of investment and employment patterns. Controlling for heteroscedasticity and potential endogeneity in the econometric analysis, we find that relative specialisation in manufacturing sectors is higher in central...

Owners of private companies are often highly underdiversified which exposes them to idiosyncratic risk. We investigate the consequences of underdiversification at the company level. Information on US companies and their owners is obtained from the Survey of Consumer Finances and the Survey of...

Kapitalmarktorientierte Unternehmen in Deutschland orientieren sich in zunehmendem Maße an der Konzernsteuerquote. Diese unterscheidet sich in wesentlichen Aspekten von den in der Forschung gängigen Maßen der effektiven Besteuerung, die auf dem neoklassischen Investitionsmodell basieren. Dies...

The paper tests empirically the role of knowledge stocks to explain the regional distribution of Germany?s biotechnology founders. We present an unique approach to highlight the role of knowledge spillovers as we differentiate according the local embeddedness and research affinity of founders....

This research investigates the hypothesis that publicly funded scientific research complements private R&D investment in the pharmaceutical industry. New microlevel data on public research investment by the U.S. National Institutes of Health allow measures of basic and clinical research in seven...