1. Firm data are taken from the Mannheim Innovation Panel (MIP). The MIP is a
yearly firm survey conducted by the Centre for European Economic Research
(ZEW) on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).
This is a confidential data source and cannot be lodged here. The MIP micro
data are, however, available free of charge in the form of anonymous data
sets, for research and teaching. More information on data access may be 
found at:
       
http://www.zew.de/en/publikationen/innovationserhebungen/wisszugang.php3
contact: Sandra Gottschalk, gottschalk@zew.de


2. Information on direct R&D project funding is provided by the BMBF and can
be downloaded from:

http://oas2.ip.kp.dlr.de/foekat/foekat/foekat.


3. Patent data are taken from the German Patent and Trade Mark Office. These
data is publicly available and can be downloaded via www.espacenet.com.


4. Information on firm age and creditworthiness is taken from the database
of Creditreform. Creditreform is the largest credit rating agency in 
Germany and collects information on the whole population of firms located in
Germany. The ZEW has access to the Creditreform database (contact at ZEW: 
Georg Metzger, metzger@zew.de).