Skilled labor shortages are a pressing economic challenge for many advanced economies. A

potential solution is to recruit talent from abroad through skilled immigration. Exploiting the

German introduction of the EU Blue Card in 2012 as a quasi-experimental policy shock to

the availability of skilled labor, we are first to analyze its differentiated impact on employment

and young firm performance. Our results show that young firms with non-EU founders benefit

disproportionately from the increased skilled-labor supply. In this context, we do not find evidence

of skilled immigrants crowding out native skilled workers. We further identify the mechanisms

driving our results and find evidence of pre-existing labor market frictions such as discrimination,

cultural barriers, and limited networks.

The climate crisis presses policymakers, communities, individuals, and businesses to implement eco-friendly behavior. However, drivers of businesses’ enhanced environmental performance remain understudied. In a sample of 11,665 German firms between 2006 and 2021, I investigate the effect of ownership change on environmental performance and justice. I find that target firms increase their process and product innovations to improve their CO2 emissions and recycling. This effect is stronger for small and less innovative firms and does not persist for firms in disadvantaged regions with lower socioeconomic status. For practitioners and policymakers, my results show that regulations that directly or indirectly limit asset sales can have far-reaching

sustainability effects.

This study examines how founder personality shapes the innovativeness of young firms. In a representative sample of 2,169 young German firms between 2011 and 2022, our results reveal that founder personality affects firm innovation. Openness to new experiences and agreeableness have a significantly positive influence on innovation input and output, whereas conscientiousness has a negative effect. We consider specific mediators and moderators of this effect. We show that founder personality systematically shapes founding team composition. Agreeable and extraverted founders tend to assemble less diverse teams, whereas conscientious founders assemble more diverse teams. Team diversity partially mediates the personality--innovation relationship and frequently opposes its direct effect. These findings provide theoretical and practical insights into how personality profiles shape founding teams and firm innovation. Young firm innovation can be enhanced by balancing personality-driven biases and encouraging diversity-conscious teams.

Seven European countries have implemented mandatory board gender quotas in the last two decades. I examine how this exogenous shock to the board of directors in publicly-listed firms impacts board- and firm-level outcomes. My analysis is the first to exploit the scattered implementation of these seven European quotas between 2008 and 2019, using a staggered difference-in-differences design. I document an economically meaningful decrease in firm performance and monitoring quality, measured by the level of earnings management. Evidence from moderation analyses show that the negative quota effect on performance is stronger in firms with higher ex-ante monitoring quality. My results suggest that imposing restrictions on specific board attributes can produce inefficient board structures and negative real effects.

The EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) taxes combustion of industrial nonhazardous waste but exempts landfilling and recycling, creating a carbon-price wedge across waste management routes. Using facility-level data from the European Pollutant Release and Transfer Register and country-level data from Eurostat, I study how a rise in EU ETS prices shifts waste management away from ETS-covered combustion. A €10/tCO2 increase in the carbon price reduces non-hazardous incinerated waste by about 9%. Waste disposal significantly diminishes in countries where landfilling is not an alternative option to waste incineration.  The carbon price has stalled the decline in landfilling and slowed the rise in energy recovery. An unbalanced carbon price risks pushing waste back down the treatment hierarchy.

I study the labor market and migratory effects of coal phase-outs.