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...

Previous empirical studies of job creation schemes in Germany have shown that the average effects for the participating individuals are negative. However, we find that this is not true for all strata of the population. Identifying individual characteristics that are responsible for the effect...

This paper evaluates the effects of a professionally assisted consumer-directed program (Personal Budgets) compared to the standard home care programs of the German long-term care insurance. The evaluation makes use of a long-run social experiment at seven different sites with a random...

In a long-run social experiment, personal budgets have been tested as an alternative to the home care programs of the German long-term care insurance (LTCI). Due to extending the coverage beyond LTCI approved services and agencies, personal budgets may improve care outcomes compared to the...