Marshall's student Pigou noted: It's all in Marshall. From a static point of view, this seems rather bold in a constantly changing world. However, this statement becomes more plausible in a dynamic context, where principles are subject to change. Indeed, over time, Marshall's concept of external...

A national-champions-related industrial policy has become (again) en vogue among European politicians. Against this background, our work orders different types of national champions along the industry lifecycle. Different types of locally bound externalities appear along the lifecycle. In a...

We incorporate the concept of social identity into a stylized model of occupational choice and analyze whether an individual's identity affects his or her decision to become an entrepreneur. We argue that an entrepreneurial identity results from an individual's socialization. This could be...

This paper takes a different perspective toward the escape entry incentive of incumbent firms to innovate. New entrants spawned from incumbents are not necessarily a threat; they can complement incumbents’ production by commercializing knowledge incumbents are not willing or able to exploit....

We investigate whether time-persistent cultural borders impede economic exchange across regions of the same country. To measure cultural differences we evaluate, for the first time in economics, linguistic micro-data about phonological and grammatical features of German dialects. These data are...

We investigate whether time-persistent cultural borders impede economic exchange across regions of the same country. To measure cultural differences we evaluate, for the first time in economics, linguistic micro-data about phonological and grammatical features of German dialects. These data are...

We analyze the extent to which endogenous cultural amenities affect the spatial equilibrium share of high-human-capital employees. To overcome endogeneity, we draw on a quasi-natural experiment in German history and exploit the exogenous spatial distribution of baroque opera houses built as a...