Search

We study the effects of a change in the way patient reimbursements are calcu- lated on the prices of pharmaceuticals using quasi-experimental data for Denmark which switched from external (where reimbursements are based on prices of similar products in foreign countries) to internal reference pricing (where they are based on the cheapest domestic substitute). We analyze three therapeutic classes with differ- ent treatment durations and show that the reform led to substantial price decreases for our lifelong treatment and to less substantial price reductions for our medium duration treatment while we do not find significant effects on our acute treatment. Moreover, the reform did only affect generics and did not impact original products or parallel imports.

We investigate the effect of mobility of R&D workers on the total patenting activity of their employers. Our study documents how mobile workers affect the patenting activity of the firm they join and the firm they leave. The effect of labor mobility is strongest if workers join from patent-active firms. We also find evidence of a positive feedback effect on the former employer's patenting from workers who have left for another patent- active firm. Summing up the effects of joining and leaving workers, we show that labor mobility increases the total innovative activity of the new and the old employer. Our study which is based on the population of R&D active Danish firms observed between 1999 and 2004 thus provides firm-level support for the notion that labor mobility stimulates overall innovation of a country or region due to knowledge transfer.

We examine the scope and value of targeted advertising in the magazine industry. We use data on reader characteristics at individual media, in contrast to previous work that has needed to infer this information from aggregate data. Our results show a strong relationship between subscriber characteristics and advertising prices. Advertisers clearly value more homogenous groups of readers, measured according to income, gender and age. Our results explain recent trends of declining advertising expenditures in print media, in favor of increasing online advertising.

Determining the research and development (R&D) boundaries of the firm as the choice between internal, collaborative and external technology acquisition has since long been a major challenge for firms to secure a continuous stream of innovative products or processes. While research on R&D cooperation or strategic alliances is abundant, little is known about the outsourcing of R&D activities to contract research organizations and its implications for innovation performance. This paper investigates the driving forces of external technology sourcing through contract research based on arguments from transaction cost theory and the resource-based view of the firm. Using a large and comprehensive data set of innovating firms from Germany our findings suggest that technological uncertainty, contractual experience and openness to external knowledge sources motivate the choice for engaging in contract research activities. Moreover, we show that internal and external R&D sourcing are complements: the marginal contribution of internal (external) R&D is the larger the more firms spend on external (internal) R&D.

Globalization has provided many companies with new opportunities for growth and efficiency. This requires them to operate successfully across cultural and social borders. These can be stumbling blocks to internationalization and have been found to cause frequent errors and delays for multinational companies. Such liabilities of foreignness are persistent in nature. We investigate the causes behind these detrimental effects. We identify two major factors conceptually: a lack of legitimacy in the host country on the demand side and a lack of responsiveness on the side of the multinational corporation. We test these hypotheses empirically using a comprehensive sample of the German car market, which is especially suitable due to its established domestic producers and international competitors. Our results suggest that the two factors interact. For less experienced customer groups, we find that legitimacy is the dominant factor behind the effects of liability of foreignness. As customer experience increases, liabity of foreignness caused by a lack of responsiveness becomes more of an issue.

We analyze the relationship between website visits, magazine demand and the demand for advertising pages using Granger non-causality tests on the ba- sis of an extensive and externally audited quarterly data set for the German magazine market spanning the period I/1998 to II/2004. We use traditional panel data estimators and an estimator suitable for heterogeneity across mag- azines. We find very robust evidence for positive effects from website visits to circulation. There is no evidence of causality running in the opposite direction. Our findings are contrary to the widespread belief that the Internet will cannibalize print media markets.

This paper uses Granger non-causality tests to analyze if channel competition exists between the companion websites of 93 German newspapers observed between I/1998 and II/2005. It provides econometric evidence for significant negative effects of companion website traffic on the print circulation of national newspapers and for significantly positive effects on local newspapers, at least for the period since I/2002.

Die aktuelle Diskussion um die Novellierung der deutschen Pressefusionskontrolle macht deutlich, welche Relevanz medienökonomische Fragestellungen haben. Was jedoch bei dieser Diskussion häufig vernachlässigt wird, ist die intensive Betrachtung der Ökonomischen Besonderheiten von Medienmärkten, nämlich der Verbundenheit von Anzeigen- und Publikumsmarkt, die Existenz von Kostendegressionen und eine unterschiedliche Marktmacht von Printmedien auf dem Anzeigen- und Publikumsmarkt. Diese Arbeit analysiert diese Charakteristika und deren Wirkungen bei möglichen Unternehmenszusammenschlüssen. Im Ergebnis zeigt sich, dass aufgrund der Heterogenität der einzelnen Märkte eine intensivere Einzelfallbetrachtung und eine stärkere Ökonomisierung der Fusionskontrolle sinnvoll erscheint. Grundlage dieser Ökonomisierung könnten quantitative Analysen sein, die mithilfe vorhandener Marktdaten durchgeführt werden können.

This paper analyzes the persistence of firms' exporting behavior in a panel of West German manufacturing firms. Dynamic binary choice models allow us to distinguish between true and spurious state dependence in firm performance. Using random effects models as well as a recent fixed effect approach which imposes few restrictions on unobservables, we find robust evidence of state dependence in the current export status of firms. Unobserved permanent firm heterogeneity ("spurious state dependence") is found to be less important than suggested by earlier studies. The existence of true state dependence in exports has direct economic policy implications: if policy successfully turns non-exporters into exporters, the effect is likely to be lasting.

We implement an endogeneous switching-regression model for labour productivity and firms' decision to use business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce. Our approach allows B2B usage to affect any parameter of the labour productivity equation and to properly take account of strategic complementarities between the input factors and B2B usage. Empirical evidence from 1,394 German firms shows that firms using B2B e-commerce have a significantly higher output elasticity with respect to ICT-investment and produce significantly more efficiently than firms that do not use B2B. Firms' labour productivity is enhanced by using B2B.

Multivariate Tobit models are estimated using German cross?sectional data to test whether strategic complementarities exist between expenditures in four different types of ICT?components. If two ICT?components are complements, they are correlated (provided that agents act rationally). Significant correlations between all four types of ICT?expenditures are found and can neither be removed by ?standard? firm heterogeneity control variables such as firm size, firms? workforce qualification structure nor by firms? ICT?structure so that indication for the presence of complementarities is provided.

Actors on print media markets face two different (and interrelated) demand curves: the demand for copies and the demand for advertising space. This paper develops a realistic, yet simple, model of print media industries. In contrast to earlier studies, it takes into account that print media firms can neither set advertising space nor its price. A main finding of this paper is that competitive concerns regarding recent concentrations in print media industries are likely to be overstated since a print media firms? cover pricing is limited by its feedback on advertising demand.

Dieser Beitrag untersucht die personalwirtschaftlichen Aspekte der Fremdvergabe von IT-Leistungen. Er bietet einen systematischen Überblick über bestehende theoretische und empirische Arbeiten zum Thema IT-Outsourcing und legt dabei einen besonderen Schwerpunkt auf die personalwirtschaftlichen Komponenten der ITFremdvergabeentscheidung. Aus dem Überblick werden Hypothesen hinsichtlich der Wirkungsrichtung verschiedener Determinanten des IT-Outsourcings abgeleitet. Diese Hypothesen werden einem empirischen Test unterzogen. Auf Grundlage eines großzahligen Datensatzes (N=679) wird die Fremdvergabeentscheidung von (i) Betreuung und Wartung von Hard- und Software, (ii) Programmierleistungen und (iii) EDV-Schulungen analysiert. Die Schätzergebnisse zeigen, dass personalwirtschaftliche Variablen wie Weiterbildung, Mangel an qualifizierten Mitarbeitern, Qualifikationsniveau der Mitarbeiter und Unternehmensgröße einen hohen Erklärungsbeitrag liefern. Unsere Resultate lassen sich u.a. als Beleg für strategische Komplementarität zwischen verschiedenen Outsourcing-Entscheidungen interpretieren. This paper analyzes those aspects of IT outsourcing decisions that are related to personnel economics. It offers a systematic overview of existing theoretical and empirical studies on that issue. We draw empirically testable hypotheses from our overview and take them to data. Based on a comparatively large data set that comprises of 679 obser-vations, we estimate the determinants of outsourcing (i) hardware and software admini-stration and maintenance, (ii) programming services and (iii) IT training. The estimation results indicate that variables such as training, lack of qualified employees, skill structure of employees, and firm size have significant effects on the decision to outsource IT services. Our results also suggest that strategic complementarities exist between the various outsourcing decisions.

I derive and estimate a model for cover price setting in print media markets where actors are faced by two interrelated demand curves: the demand for the print medium and the demand for advertising space. Publicly available data on German women?s magazines observed between 1998 and 2001 are used in the GMM estimation. Main findings are that my estimated marginals cost coincide well with those of industry sources, magazines with a high circulation elasticity of advertising demand price markedly below marginal cost and website provision neither has a significant effect on magazine nor on advertising demand. Keywords: magazines, cost estimation, GMM estimation, website provision

The determinants of transitions between different states of financial distress are analyzed using two versions of Markov chain models: a multinomial logit model without random effects and a multinomial logit model capturing such unobservable factors. The empirical analysis is based on a panel data set containing information on 15,538 East German firms founded between 1994 and 1999. The estimation results indicate that the effect of limited liability depends upon firms' starting state, the existence of corporate shareholders improves firms' financial performance, multiple credit relationships have negative effects and product diversification as well as positive macroeconomic conditions improve firms' financial performance.

What happens to demand if a magazine launches a website? This question is empirically analyzed for the German women’s magazine market, a particularly large segment of the German magazine where fierce competition is reigning. Models for differentiated product demand are estimated on panel data covering the period 1990 to 2000, showing that website provision does not significantly affect magazines’ market shares. Magazines that launched a website face a significantly lower price elasticity of demand than competitors that did not go online. Descriptive evidence on the magazines’ website contents shows that websites are used to provide supplementary information and to advertise current print issues.

This paper investigates if significant differences exist between online and paper & pencil participants in a quarterly business survey in the German business–related services sector when respondents may freely choose to respond either online or by more conventional methods. It also analyzes the determinants of online participation and studies if item–nonresponse is reduced when respondents participate online. Online respondents, indeed, significantly differ from paper & pencil participants with respect to their ordinal sales and price assessments, with online participants being less optimistic on both counts than their paper & pencil counterparts. These differences are not attributable to observable firm characteristics as far as sales judgements are concerned and they disappear once it is controlled for observable firm heterogeneity in the case of price assessments. Significant differences in the judgement of demand, profit and employment as well as in the expectations concerning sales, prices, demand, profit and employment cannot be found. Binary probit model estimation results indicate that online participation is not significantly affected by sector affiliation, affiliation to East or West Germany nor information technology endowment. Firms with between 1 and 19 employees are, however, significantly less likely than larger firms to participate online. A significant correlation between online participation and unit–nonresponse does not exist, as a bivariate probit model with sample selection estimation results show. In general, item–nonresponse tends to be higher for online–respondents.

This paper derives a three stage Cournot?oligopoly game for product innovation, expenditure on introducing the product and competition on the product market. Product innovation is assumed to increase consumer utility but is effective only if the innovating firm invests in marketing, so that consumers become aware of the newly developed product. Firms first decide whether or not to conduct product innovation and then determine their expenditure for bringing the new product to the market. In the final stage of the game, they are involved in competition on the product market. Key findings of the theoretical model are that both the marketing of a product innovation and a firm?s propensity to introduce an innovation decrease with an increase in the number of competitors and the degree of product substitutability. An increase in market demand has a positive effect on product innovation and marketing effort. These findings are tested empirically using survey data from 519 German service sector firms which mainly produce consumer goods. A simultaneous sequential Tobit model is applied in the empirical part of this paper. It turns out that the predictions of the theoretical model are supported by the empirical findings.

This paper analyzes the relationship between investment in information and communication technologies (ICT), non-ICT-investment, labor productivity and workplace reorganization. Firms are assumed to reorganize workplaces if the productivity gains arising from workplace reorganization exceed the associated reorganization costs. Two different types of organizational change are considered : introduction of group-work and flattening of hierarchies. Empirical evidence is provided for a sample of 411 firms from the German business-related services sector. We develop and estimate a model for labor productivity and firms' decision to re-organize workplaces that allows workplace reorganization to affect any parameter of the labor productivity equation. Our general and flexible methodology allows to properly take account of strategic complementarities between the input factors and workplace reorganization. The estimation results show that changes in human resources practices do not significantly affect firms' output elasticities with respect to information and communication technologies (ICT), non-ICT-capital and labor although most of the point estimates of the individual output elasticities and of the control variables for observable firm heterogeneity are larger if workplace reorganization is realized. We therefore apply Kernel density estimation technique and demonstrate that for firms with organizational change the entire labor productivity distribution shifts significantly out to the right if workplace reorganization takes place, indicating that workplace reorganization induces an increase in labor productivity that is attributable to complementarities between the various input factors and workplace reorganization. By contrast, firms without organizational change would not have realized significant productivity gains if they had reorganized workplaces.

This paper derives a three stage Cournot duopoly game for research collaboration, research expenditures and product market competition. The amount of knowledge firms can absorb is made dependent on their own research efforts, e.g. firms' absorptive capacity is treated as an endogenous variable. It is shown that cooperating firms invest more in R&D than non–cooperating firms if spillovers are sufficiently large. The degree of market competition is a key determinant of the effects of research cooperation on research efforts, implying that existing models which assume perfect competition might be too restrictive.

This paper aims at providing business survey analysts with simple econometric tools to quantify qualitative survey data. We extend the traditional and commonly applied method proposed by Carlson and Parkin (1975) to capture observable survey respondent heterogeneity. We also discuss specification tests. The empirical analysis is based on business survey data taken from the ZEW's 'Service Sector Business Survey', a quarterly business survey in the German business-related service sector carried out since 1994.

There is a growing concern about collective wage agreement and employment dynamics in Germany. In this paper, evidence is provided on the way collective wage agreements affect the adjustment of working hours, employment and other production factors when firms from the service sector are faced with demand shocks. The estimation results indicate that collective wage agreements significantly influence firms' employment policies. Enrolments and the employment of free-lance collaborators are negatively affected while the probability of using short-term employment contracts as a reaction to demand shocks is positively influenced. No significant effect on the probability of dismissing workers has been found.

Der Beitrag untersucht die Verbreitung von Tarifverträgen in Dienstleistungsunternehmen sowie deren Wirkungen auf die Beschäftigungspolitik im Falle von Nachfrageschwankungen. Der empirische Teil basiert auf der ZEW/Creditreform Konjunkturumfrage bei unternehmensnahen Dienstleistungsunternehmen aus den Jahren 1996 bis 1999. 38 Prozent der Unternehmen in der Stichprobe wenden einen Tarifvertrag an. In den nicht-tarifgebundenen Unternehmen werden in 87 Prozent die Arbeitsbedingungen einzelvertraglich ausgehandelt. Die ökonometrischen Ergebnisse auf der Grundlage von geordneten Panelprobitmodellen unter Berücksichtigung unbeobachteter unternehmensspezifischer Heterogenität deuten darauf hin, daß Tarifverträge die unternehmerische Beschäftigungspolitik beeinflussen. Im Falle von Nachfrageschwankungen wenden tarifgebundene Unternehmen die Instrumente Neueinstellungen und Überstunden/Kurzarbeit signifikant seltener als nichttarifgebundene Unternehmen an.

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 and a multinomial logit specification to model the transition probabilitites. Three variants of the model are estimated: a linear index model with and without unobserved firm heterogeneity and a semiparametric model. Main results are that firm size has a positive effect on firm performance, that young firms outperform older competitors, that a bank-relationship with a single creditor has a stabilizing effect and that the degree of diversification has a negative impact on firm performance. The legal status appears to have no significant effect.

No other area of the German economy has developed so emphatically in the past ten years as has that of business-related services. Regardless of its growing overall economic importance, official statistics fail to provide economic researchers and economic policy with current data on the business-realted service sector. In such a situation where quantitative information about certain sectors is lacking, data obtained from business surveys give important information on the state of economy. The outcome of such surveys crucially depends on the expansion factors attached to the responses of individual firms. In this paper it is shown how a robust method of calculating expansion factors can be obtained using known auxiliary totals from the population. Robust in this sense means that the expanded data of the ZEW/Creditreform business survey are insensitive to changes in the sample design while the non-expanded data are not.

This paper develops a three stage oligopoly game for R&D cooperation, R&D expenditure and product market competition. In the first stage, firms decide whether or not to conduct R&D in cooperation with other firms. In the second stage the level of R&D investment is determined. Finally, firms compete in a Cournot–oligopoly product market. While earlier models on R&D cooperation only considered process innovation, the model presented here also takes product innovation into account. It is shown that the optimal R&D investment has virtually the same structure for both process and product innovation. The main hypothesis of our theoretical model are tested in the empirical part of this paper.

This paper investigates the determinants of transaction price changes during BUND-future trading at Deutsche Terminbörse (DTB) and London International Financial Futures Exchange (LIFFE). The analysis uses the ordered probit model, which is an econometric tool that is comparatively new to the econometrics of financial markets. It is especially valuable with respect to high frequency data which are used for the empirical analysis of this paper. Although the ordered probit model is nonstructural, it allows to test the validity of market microstructure literature. A comparison of BUND-futures trading at DTB and LIFFE is also conducted. ; In dieser Arbeit werden die Determinanten von Transaktionspreisveränderungen während des BUND-Future Handels an der Deutschen Terminbörse (DTB) und der London International Financial Futures Exchange (LIFFE) untersucht. Die Analyse wird mit Hilfe eines geordneten Probitmodells durchgeführt, das bisher kaum für Finanzmarktdaten verwendet wurde. Obwohl das geordnete Probitmodell nichtstrukturell ist, erlaubt es, einige mikroökonomische Ansätze zur Erklärung bestimmter Marktphänomena auf ihre Richtigkeit hin zu Überprüfen. Die Untersuchung verwendet dabei Hochfrequenzdaten, deren Eigenschaften das geordnete Probitmodell in besonderem Maße Rechnung trägt. Außerdem wird ein Vergleich zwischen den beiden Börsen DTB und LIFFE angestellt.

Can publicly available, web-scraped data be used to identify promising business startups at an early stage? To answer this question, we use such textual and non-textual information about the names of Danish firms and their addresses as well as their business purpose statements (BPSs) supplemented by core accounting information along with founder and initial startup characteristics to forecast the performance of newly started enterprises over a five years' time horizon. The performance outcomes we consider are involuntary exit, above-average employment growth, a return on assets of above 20 percent, new patent applications and participation in an innovation subsidy program. Our first key finding is that our models predict startup performance with either high or very high accuracy with the exception of high returns on assets where predictive power remains poor. Our second key finding is that the data requirements for predicting performance outcomes with such accuracy are low. To forecast the two innovation-related performance outcomes well, we only need to include a set of variables derived from the BPS texts while an accurate prediction of startup survival and high employment growth needs the combination of (i) information derived from the names of the startups, (ii) data on elementary founder-related characteristics and (iii) either variables describing the initial characteristics of the startup (to predict startup survival) or business purpose statement information (to predict high employment growth). These sets of variables are easily obtainable since the underlying information is mandatory to report upon business registration. The substantial accuracy of our predictions for survival, employment growth, new patents and participation in innovation subsidy programs indicates ample scope for algorithmic scoring models as an additional pillar of funding and innovation support decisions.

We present and estimate a model of competition in a two-sided market: the market for magazine readership and advertising. Using data on magazines in Germany, we find evidence that magazines have properties of two-sided markets. The results are consistent with the perception that prices for readers are "subsidized" and magazines make most of their money from advertisers. Consistent with advertisers valuing readers more than readers value advertisements, our results imply that higher demand or lower costs on the reader side increase ad rates, but that higher demand or lower costs on the advertising side decrease cover prices.

Diese Dissertation befasst sich in drei empirischen Aufsätzen mit der Auslagerung von Informationstechnologien (IT) und Geschäftsprozessen. Der erste Beitrag untersucht die Auswirkung von IT-Outsourcing auf die Arbeitsproduktivität der auslagernden Unternehmen, wobei ein Endogenous Switching Regression Modell im Rahmen einer Cobb-Douglas Produktionsfunktion verwendet wird. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass Mitarbeiter, die hauptsächlich mit einem Computer arbeiten, produktiver sind in Unternehmen die IT auslagern. Daher kann die Computernutzung und IT Outsourcing als komplementäre Faktoren betrachtet werden, die sich beide positiv auf die Arbeitsproduktivität auswirken. Der zweite Aufsatz befasst sich mit der Wirkung von IT Outsourcing auf das Beschäftigungswachstum. Während Outsourcing zumindest kurzfristig oftmals mit einem Beschäftigungsabbau in den auslagernden Unternehmen assoziiert wird, können die mittel- bis langfristigen Auswirkungen von Outsourcing durchaus positiv sein. Durch einen Instrumentalvariablenansatz wird für mögliche Endogenität zwischen Beschäftigungswachstum und IT Outsourcing kontrolliert. Die empirischen Ergebnisse sprechen dafür, dass sich Outsourcing mittelfristig positiv auf das Beschäftigungswachstum der Unternehmen auswirkt. Allerdings zeigt eine separate Betrachtung des verarbeitenden Gewerbes und von Dienstleistungsunternehmen, dass dieser positive Effekt nur für letztere signifikant ist. Der dritte und letzte Beitrag untersucht die Auswirkung der Auslagerung von IT nahen Geschäftsprozessen auf die Unternehmensproduktivität. Diese Analyse basiert auf Paneldaten. Um Verzerrungen durch nicht beobachtbare Heterogenität von Firmen, Messfehler der Variablen und Simultanität der In- und Outputs zu erfassen, werden verschiedene Schätzverfahren im Rahmen einer Cobb-Douglas Produktionsfunktion verwendet. Die Ergebnisse zeigen einen signifikanten positiven Effekt der Auslagerung von Geschäftsprozessen auf die Produktivität der Unternehmen. This thesis consists of three essays that contribute to the empirical literature on information technology (IT) and business process outsourcing. The first essay analyses the impact of information technology outsourcing on labour productivity in outsourcing firms by using an endogenous switching regression model in a Cobb-Douglas production function framework. Estimation results show that employees who mainly work with a computer are more productive in firms conducting IT outsourcing. Therefore, computer usage and IT outsourcing can be interpreted as complementary factors that positively affect firms’ labour productivity. The second essay refers to the employment effects of IT outsourcing. Even though, in most cases outsourcing is widely associated with accompanied job losses in outsourcing firms, the medium and long term effects of outsourcing can absolutely still be positive. The analysis is conducted by using an instrumental variable approach to account for possible endogeneity between the employment growth rate and IT outsourcing. Estimation results provide empirical evidence that IT outsourcing has a positive effect on a firms’ medium-term employment growth rate. However, dividing the sample into manufacturing and service firms, a significant medium-term positive growth effect of IT outsourcing can only be observed for firms operating in the service sector. Finally, the last essay takes a close look at the impact of IT-related business process outsourcing on firm productivity. This analysis is based on panel data. In order to account for unobserved firm heterogeneity, measurement errors in the variables and simultaneity of inputs and output, different estimation techniques are applied to estimate a Cobb-Douglas production function model. The results clearly reveal a positive and significant impact of business process outsourcing on firm-level productivity.