In empirical studies often the values of some variables for some observations are much larger or smaller than the values for the other observations in the sample. These extreme observations, or outliers, often have a large impact on the results of statistical analyses. Conclusions based on a...

We use unique rich data for German manufacturing enterprises to investigate the product diversification – firm performance relationship.We find that an increase in the degree of product diversification has a negative impact on profitability when observed and unobserved firm characteristics are...

This paper contributes to the literature by documenting for the first time the contribution of adding (and dropping) goods and destination countries to the sharp increase in exports of goods in the German economy as a whole during the Great Export Recovery in 2009/2010. The empirical...

Using data from the social survey ALLBUS for West Germany in the period 1980 to 2006, this paper demonstrates that union members are on average older than non-unionized employees. The probability of being unionized shows the inverted U-shaped pattern in age conjectured by Blanchflower (BJIR...

This is the first study of the link between internationalization and firm survival during the 2008/2009 crisis in Germany, a country which was hit relatively lightly compared to other countries. Moreover, it is the first study which looks at the role of importing, exporting and FDI...

This paper contributes to the literature on the use of anonymized firm level data by reporting results from a replication study. To test for the practical usefulness of anonymized data I selected two of my published papers based on different cross sections of firm data. The data used there were...

Using unique recently released nationally representative high-quality data at the plant level, this paper presents the first comprehensive evidence on the relationship between productivity and size of the export market for Germany, a leading actor on the world market for manufactured goods. It...

The focus of this paper is on the choice of the unemployed between becoming an entrepreneur or not. It contributes to the literature by empirically investigating the impact of personal characteristics and attitudes, and of the regional "entrepreneurial milieu", on the individual decision to...

Interest in the theoretical and empirical analysis of multi-product enterprises is growing. This paper uses newly available representative longitudinal data covering the years 1995 to 2004 to document for the first time the extent of product diversification in German manufacturing enterprises...

Using OLS and quantile regression methods and rich cross-section data sets for western and eastern Germany, this paper demonstrates that the impact of works council presence on labor productivity varies between manufacturing and services, between plants that are or are not covered by collective...