Silvia Rocchetta (p)

Henri de Groot

In this paper, we use an original firm-level dataset to explore the factors affecting firm probability to grow throughout the Great Recession. In particular, the question we want to address is whether the firms able to grow during recessionary shocks differ in terms of structural characteristics, such as their degree of innovativeness, their profitability their financial conditions and geographical location compared to the companies experiencing decline throughout the crisis. In this context, the automotive industry can be included among the Italian sectors that have been mostly hit by the Great Recession. It represents, therefore, a particularly interesting field to reflect upon the determinants of varying firm capabilities to face severe destabilizing disturbances. The empirical estimations corroborate the hypotheses that firms that invested in intangibles assets and innovated in the pre-crisis period have better chances of growing during an unexpected economic downturn. The presence of agglomeration economies does not appear to significantly influence firm probability to grow throughout recessionary phases.

Moritz Breul, Mariane Santos Françoso (p)

Henri de Groot

See extended abstract

Orsa Kekezi (p)

Henri de Groot

The purpose of the paper is to study how the relatedness of skills among workers, affects the performance of firms in the gaming industry in Sweden. Using longitudinal matched employer-employee data, I measure related and unrelated variety of the previously-acquired skills of the employees through: (i) the type of high education, (ii) the industry they have previously been working at, and (iii) the previous occupation they have had. Results show that the unrelatedness of all types of skills are positive for productivity growth in the gaming industry. Relatedness of occupational experience, shows a negative relation to productivity growth, while the other two measures are statistically insignificant. Similarly, the share of individuals with the exact same industry experience is negatively related to firm performance. These results imply that firms in the gaming industry need a rather diverse set of skills in the firm to create productivity growth, which is in line with the current research on this industry.