The drivers of the spatial emergence and clustering of the photovoltaic industry in Germany. Following the relatedness literature, we explore to what extent related industries influenced the regional emergence of the photovoltaic (PV) industry. In addition, we shed light on factors explaining selective processes of clustering. We particularly argue that generic resources and resources of related activities have been crucial for the regional concentration in early phases of the industry life cycle. With increasing maturity, industry-specific resources became more important. Based on a unique dataset containing population dynamics of the German PV industry, the hypotheses are tested empirically. Our results partially confirm the assumed beneficial effects of related industries for the emergence of the PV industry. Moreover, we observe changes in the relative importance of factors supporting regional concentration, with industry-specific resources becoming dominant as the industry matures.

The aim of this paper is to contribute to the literature on internationalised research and development by investigating determinants of knowledge and technology transfer between foreign subsidiaries and the local economy in European post-transition economies. This inquiry leads to a better understanding of determinants that influence this knowledge and technology exchange. Applying a logit model, we find that, in particular, the foreign subsidiary’s corporate governance structure, its embeddedness in the multinational enterprise’s internal knowledge base, its own technological capacity, the growth of the regional knowledge stock and the regional sectoral diversification are all positively associated with the transfer of knowledge. Subsidiaries’ investment motives and the relative weight of the sector of investment in the region’s economy appear to be of less importance. The analysis focuses on European post-transition economies, using the example of five selected Central Eastern European countries and East Germany. We exploit a unique dataset, the IWH FDI Micro database, which contains information on one thousand two hundred forty-five foreign subsidiaries in this region.

Administrative data from a large and diverse community college are used to examine if underrepresented minority students benefit from taking courses with underrepresented minority instructors. To identify racial interactions we estimate models that include both student and classroom fixed effects and focus on students with limited choice in courses. We find that the performance gap in terms of class dropout rates and grade performance between white and underrepresented minority students falls by 20 to 50 percent when taught by an underrepresented minority instructor. We also find these interactions affect longer term outcomes such as subsequent course selection, retention, and degree completion.

In the decade prior to the economic and financial crisis, Germany’s net exports increased in absolute terms as well as relative to the growing level of import intensity of domestically produced export goods and services. This article analyses the direct and indirect employment effects induced both by exports as well as by of the import intensity of the production process of export goods and services on the skills used. It shows that Germany’s export surpluses led to positive net employment effects. Although the volume of imports of intermediate goods increased and was augmented by the rise in exports, it could not undermine the overall positive employment effect.

Past research on the impact of R&D cooperation on firm innovation performance has almost solely focused on technological innovations. This paper investigates the impact of R&D cooperation on non-technological innovation performance of firms. In doing so, seven different cooperation partner types are distinguished. Survey data from German firms are used for the econometric analysis. It is shown that R&D cooperation increases the probability of a firm to introduce non-technological innovations. R&D cooperation with suppliers, consultants, other firms within the same firm group and universities has a significant positive impact on organizational and marketing innovation performance. Cooperation with governmental research institutes and competitors has no significant effect. R&D cooperation with customers has a significant impact on a firm's organizational innovation performance, but not on marketing innovation performance.

This study provides new evidence on the impact of the EU Cohesion Policy on income growth in less developed regions. Our panel includes data from all European regions for the years 1989-2020. Using a fuzzy Regression Discontinuity Design, we model treatment dynamics by applying a random effects estimator. Based on digitized historical data, we precisely replicate the policy rule and correctly classify the regions’ eligibility status. Results show that the policy has a moderate positive effect on GDP per capita growth in the targeted regions.

This paper documents substantial fiscal waste in the context of one the world’s largest regional development programs – the EU Cohesion Policy. We study Italy, and find that 20% of funding commitments are never paid out and funneled into unfinished or never-started projects. In our setting, this happens for reasons unrelated to fiscal constraints – municipalities appear to simply leave money on the table. Foregone spending is more prevalent in Southern regions, but there is also stark variation across municipalities within regions. We show that such under-utilization of available funds is strongly associated with limited administrative capacity of local governments.

In this study, establishment-level employment effects of investment grants in Germany are estimated. In addition to the quantitative effects, I provide empirical evidence of funding effects on different aspects of employment quality (earnings, qualifications, and job security) for the period 2004 to 2020. The database combines project-level treatment data, establishment-level information on firm characteristics and employee structure, and regional information at the district-level. For the estimations, I combine the difference-in-differences approach of Callaway and Sant’Anna (2021) with ties matching at the cohort level. The estimations yield positive effects on the number of employees, but point to contradicting effects of investment grants on different aspects of employment quality.

We study the granular wage and employment effects of a German place-based policy using a research design that leverages conditionally exogenous EU-wide rules governing program parameters at the regional level. The place-based program subsidizes investments to create jobs with a subsidy rate that varies across labor market regions. The analysis uses matched data on the universe of establishments and their employees, establishment-level panel data on program participation, and regional scores that generate spatial discontinuities in program eligibility and generosity. Spatial spillovers of the program linked to changing commuting patterns can be assessed using information on place of work and place of residence, a unique feature of the data. These rich data enable us to study the incidence of the place-based program on different groups of individuals. We find that the program helps establishments create jobs that disproportionately benefit younger and less-educated workers. Funded establishments increase their wages but, unlike employment, wage gains do not persist in the long run. Employment effects estimated at the local area level are slightly larger than establishment- level estimates, suggesting limited economic spillover effects. On the other hand, spatial spillovers are large as over half of the employment increase comes from commuters. Using subsidy rates as an instrumental variable for actual subsidies indicates that it costs approximately EUR 25,000 to create a new job in the economically disadvantaged areas targeted by the program.

The paper presents a modification of the matching and difference-in-differences approach of Heckman et al. (1998) for the staggered treatment adoption design and a Stata tool that implements the approach. This flexible conditional difference-in-differences approach is particularly useful for causal analysis of treatments with varying start dates and varying treatment durations. Introducing more flexibility enables the user to consider individual treatment periods for the treated observations and thus circumventing problems arising in canonical difference-in-differences approaches. The open-source flexpaneldid toolbox for Stata implements the developed approach and allows comprehensive robustness checks and quality tests. The core of the paper gives comprehensive examples to explain the use of the commands and its options on the basis of a publicly accessible data set.