Successful innovation is a precondition for economic prosperity. While various potential determinants of innovative activity have been considered, little empirical evidence is yet available for the influence of firm governance issues. This paper aims at filling this gap in the literature by...

Despite of the deeply rooted belief of politicians from all over the world in the important role of Mittelstand firms, there has been surprisingly little empirical research on this issue, yet. This article contributes to the literature by studying whether the relative regional importance of...

Germany’s comparatively good economic performance throughout the Great Recession of the years 2008/2009 is often attributed to the business model of the German Mittelstand firm. Somewhat surprisingly, this claim has never been backed by empirical evidence. In this paper we use micro panel data...

Germany’s comparatively good economic performance throughout the Great Recession of the years 2008/2009 is often attributed to the business model of the German Mittelstand firm. Somewhat surprisingly, this claim has never been backed by empirical evidence. In this paper we use micro panel data...

The paper examines the impact of immigration on innovation. We exploit an immigrant placement policy which took place during the early nineties in Germany when large numbers of so called ethnic Germans entered the country. This allows us to overcome the potential bias of endogenous location...

This paper analyzes in how far immigration affects firm formation at the regional level. For this purpose, we exploit a placement policy in Germany in the 1990s for immigrants of German origin from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Our panel regressions suggest that immigration had a...