Inhaltsangabe1 Preliminary remarks.- 2 The anatomy of the German service sector.- 2.1 Introduction.- 2.2 Overall economic importance and economic growth.- 2.3 Research and research organization.- 2.4 Employment structures.- 2.5 Firm performance.- 2.6 Conclusions.- 3 Research and research organization.- 3.1 Introduction.- 3.2 Previous game-theoretical approaches.- 3.3 R&D with endogenous absorptive capacity.- 3.3.1 Market demand.- 3.3.2 R&D production function.- 3.3.3 Stage III: Product market competition.- 3.3.4 Stage II: Determination of R&D levels.- 3.3.5 Stage I: R&D cooperation.- 3.4 Data.- 3.5 Measuring knowledge spillovers.- 3.6 Testing the theoretical model.- 3.7 Conclusions.- 3.8 Appendices.- 4 New technologies, wages and employment.- 4.1 Introduction.- 4.2 New technologies and the demand for heterogeneous labor.- 4.2.1 Theoretical framework and empirical implementation.- 4.2.2 Calculating skill-specific and firm-specific labor cost.- 4.2.3 Estimation results.- 4.3 Efficient bargaining and the skill-structure of wages and em-ployment.- 4.3.1 Theoretical framework and empirical implementation.- 4.3.2 Estimation results.- 4.4 Conclusions.- 4.5 Appendices.- 5 Financial distress of newly founded service sector firms.- 5.1 Introduction.- 5.2 Previous studies on firm default.- 5.3 Data.- 5.4 A dynamic model of financial distress.- 5.5 Estimation results.- 5.6 Conclusions.- 5.7 Appendices.- 6 Summary and conclusions.- References.