This paper investigates whether the economic factors that are related to firm growth in the literature also determine the development path of firms. This means that we test which economic factors possess the ability to remain effective for a longer period of time. We examine three variables:...

This paper focuses on factors that affect the growth of manufacturing firms in Germany. It addresses which factors might be needful and which factors might be helpful for the different growth stages of these firms. Most firms face turning points in their life course, and thus do not grow...

The regional or national innovation performance has been repeatedly measured in the literature; but it has so far not been discussed what this means, especially in relation to a region. What is the contribution of a region to innovation output? The usual approaches implicitly assume that higher...

Subsidies for R&D are an important tool of public R&D policy, which motivates extensive scientific analyses and evaluations. The paper adds to this literature by arguing that the effects of R&D subsidies go beyond the extension of organizations' monetary resources invested into R&D. It is argued...

Measuring the innovation performance of regions or nations has been repeatedly done in the literature. What is missing in the literature is a discussion of what innovation performance of a region means. How do regions or nations contribute really to the innovation output of firms? And how can...