We investigate the role of industry and region-specific conditions for the survival of
new businesses in innovative and in other manufacturing industries. The data
comprises all German manufacturing start-ups of the 1992 to 2005 period. In
contrast to studies for some other countries, we find that businesses in innovative
industries have higher survival rates than businesses in other manufacturing
industries. Moreover, the chances of survival for innovative industries are rather
immune to changes, regarding regional and industry-specific conditions, whereas
businesses in the other manufacturing industries are strongly affected. These
findings highlight that resistance to adverse conditions is dependent on industry
specific opportunities and technological conditions.