Innovation activities in the German enterprise sector showed two opposing trends over the past two decades: While total innovation expenditures grew substantially, the number of firms conducting innovation activities fell sharply. Innovation expenditures hence concentrate on fewer firms. In this...

In this paper we analyze the conditions under which firms decide to offshore innovation. We consider the role of internal technological capabilities and technological dynamism in the firm environment, distinguishing speed and uncertainty of technological change. Using unique data from the German...

This paper investigates the impact of energy policies on the export performance of firms. There has been a long policy debate on potentially negative impacts of cost-increasing energy policies on international competitiveness. We use firm-level data from three countries with similar industry...

The global economic crisis of 2008/2009 hit many firms hard. Faced with rapidly declining sales and highly uncertain economic prospects, firms had to cut costs and reconsider their business strategies. With respect to innovation, cost cutting often means to stop or underresource innovation...

The success of an energy turnaround towards renewables highly depends on the willingness and ability of firms to adopt energy technologies using renewable sources. Existing studies focused on the role of regulation and energy markets (e.g. the price for fossil energy) to explain the diffusion of...

The Internet is receiving increasing attention as a medium for technology transfer between public research and the enterprise sector. Based on a survey of public research units in natural sciences and engineering in Germany, we analyse the determinants of firm contacts established via the...

In this paper we analyze the impact of service station availability on the demand for alternative-fuel vehicles and the consumers' willingness to pay for an enlarged fueling infrastructure. We examine a stated preferences choice experiment conducted as a CAPI survey with about 600 interviews of...

Energy and resource efficiency innovations (EREIs) are often seen as win-win opportunities for both the economic and the environmental performance of firms. It is thus worth asking how the innovation activities and performance of firms with regard to energy and resource efficiency look like: Do...

Motorised individual transport strongly contributes to global CO2 emissions, due to its intensive usage of fossil fuels. Current political efforts addressing this issue (i.e. emission performance standards in the EU) are directed towards car manufacturers. This paper focuses on the demand side....