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Abstract:
Our analysis of the survival of firms leads to the important result that the hypotheses about differences between various industries in the life duration of new firms and about the importance of the region of location for the probability of survival are confirmed. Many more enterprises are founded in the service sector than in manufacturing, but also many more of these start-ups die. The probable life duration in agglomeration areas is in total greater than in rural areas. The analysis of the determinants of the hazard rates of firms confirmed the additional hypothesis that a larger number of employees at the time of foundation and the legal form of the limited company reduce the risk of exit.

The growth of employment in firms interviewed by us shows a similar sectoral and regional differentiation as the life duration. The survey found that sectors with a greater proportion of cooperating firms have a greater growth rate. The innovation activities however do hardly differ between the analysed high-tech industries. Cooperation between start-up firms can be interpreted as a kind of mutual assistence which results predominantly from personal contacts. The personal networks which developed from the environment of the entrepreneurs and according to specific sector conditions should not be treated as equivalent to innovation networks for which our analysis does not find any empirical hint.

Life Duration, Labor Market Policy, Start-Up, High-Tech Firms, Cooperation

Abstract:
Empirical research on the determinants of right and left-wing extremist election successes is still dominated by descriptive statistical methods. The existing literature in political economy and political science mainly relies on interviews and survey results as well as on qualitative analyses of party organizations and programs. Contrary to this approach, in this study we try to identify significant, structural socio-economic factors which determined the vote for the right-wing "Republikaner" party and the left-wing Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) in the two recent elections of the European Parliament in Germany. We use a new data set on the level of German counties (Kreise) that is analyzed econometrically by a FGLS random effects panel model. The results we obtain are partly in stark contrast to empirical findings discussed in the mainstream literature and in the public. The resulting, most important areas of political action against extremist parties seem to be education, a differentiated labor market policy, social work with adolescents, and the maintenance of a generous system of social security and welfare.

Elections, Political Extremism, Labor Market Policy, Welfare Policy

Abstract:
This paper investigates the consequences of immigration, crime and socio-economic depriviation for the performance of right-wing extremist and populist parties in the German city state of Hamburg between 1986 and 2005. The ecological determinants of voting for right-wing parties on the district level are compared to those for mainstream and other protest parties. Parallels and differences in spatial characteristics between right-wing extremist and populist parties' performance are identified. Our empirical results tend to confirm the general contextual sociological theory of right-wing radicalization by general social deprivation and immigration. Nevertheless they indicate that one has to be very cautious when interpreting the unemployment/crime - right-winger nexus. Moreover, crime does not seem to have a strong significant effect on right-wing populist parties' election successes despite its importance for their programmes and campaigns.

elections, political extremism, labor market policy, welfare policy, immigration