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The Employment-Financing Nexus: Evidence from a Panel of West German Firms

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Abstract

The objective of the paper is to investigate the linkage between financial factors and employment decisions of West German firms. The underlying model is based upon rational expectations and convex adjustment costs. The time series, cross-section estimates for the period 1989–1994 are obtained using information on individual firms contained in business surveys. We find that financial constraints can indeed restrain the level of employment in small firms. On the contrary, there is no evidence that this result applies to larger firms as well.

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Funke, M., Maurer, W., Siddiqui, S. et al. The Employment-Financing Nexus: Evidence from a Panel of West German Firms. Small Business Economics 11, 225–235 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1007959512867

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