Studies on firm performance and web presence published

20.04.2021

Two new studies by  Prof. Dr. Joachim Wagner look at the role of presence of firms in the World Wide Web for firm performance. One study uses firm level data from the World Bank Enterprise surveys conducted in 2019 in 18 European countries to investigate the link between having a website and firm characteristics. The study reports that firms which are present in the web are larger, older, more productive, and more often exporters, product innovators, process innovators and (partly) foreign owned firms than firms without a website. The estimated website premia are statistically highly significant ceteris paribus after controlling for country and sector of economic activity. Furthermore, the size of these premia can be considered to be large. Good firms tend to have a website. A second study uses firm level data from the World Bank Enterprise surveys conducted in 2019 and from the COVID-19 follow-up surveys conducted in 2020 in ten European countries to investigate the link between having a website before the pandemic and firm survival until 2020 .The estimated effect of web presence is statistically highly significant ceteris paribus after controlling for various firm characteristics that are known to be related to survival. Furthermore, the size of this estimated effect can be considered to be large on average. A web site helped firms to survive. The working papers can be downloaded free of charge here: Working Paper 399/Working Paper 401