This paper is composed of two parts. First, using international data, I corroborate that union density in the U.S. declined because of asymmetric growth between the union and nonunion sectors. I show union density to increase in countries experiencing strong manufacturing growth, and to decline...

Do firm entry and exit improve the competitiveness of regions? If so, is this a universal mechanism or is it contingent on the type of industry or region in which creative destruction takes place? This paper analyses the effect of firm entry and exit on the competitiveness of regions, measured...

Foreign direct investment (FDI) has boomed in post-reform India. Moreover, the composition and type of FDI has changed considerably since India has opened up to world markets. This has fuelled high expectations that FDI may serve as a catalyst to higher economic growth. We assess the growth...

Globalization and pressure from increased competition have led to "splintering" of in-house services from formerly integrated manufacturing firms in developed economies and, at the same time, to an increase in "outsourcing" of these same services. These two trends have caused a stronger linkage...

We estimate the pro-competitive effects of Austria's participation in the Single Market after its EU accession in 1995 in terms of firms' market power as measured by the Lerner index, using a sample of 46 industries and 7 industry groups, covering the period 1978 to 2001. In the framework of the...

Die Schattenwirtschaft wird in Deutschland regelmäßig sehr hoch geschätzt. Diese Makroschätzungen lassen sich jedoch mit den viel niedrigeren Mikroschätzungen nicht in Einklang bringen. Fraglich ist, ob aufgrund der Fehleinschätzung der Schattenwirtschaft teure Kontrollinstrumente...

The aim of this paper is twofold: one, it analyzes the dynamic factor adjustment patterns and performance changes of firms in response to periods of rapid adjustment of capital, labor, production and non-production labor; and, two, it sheds light on the role of firm characteristics on the...

This paper studies the sectoral and geographical dimensions of the response of bank lending to sectoral growth. We use several bank-level datasets provided by the Deutsche Bundesbank for the 1996-2002 period. Our results show that bank heterogeneity affects how lending responds to domestic...

We analyze the performance of firms in the German business-related services sector. A quarterly business survey provides the panel data base of our study. Firm performance is measured by the survey respondents? ordinal indication of their changes in total sales. We use a firstorder Markov chain...