We model the emergence of organization forms in a game between prospective entrepreneurs. Complementary roles arise endogenously in a way that admits a stable assignment of workers to firms. This contrasts with existing work on job matching, where stability typically requires workers to be...

We construct a simple model of occupational choice among agents with differing abilities. The fraction of agents creating new businesses who are low ability rises during recessions. Thus, cohorts born during recessions are on average lower quality: their businesses yield lower initial earnings,...

We develop a new perspective on the boundary of the firm that is consistent with the empirical observation that the share of entrepreneurs first decreases and then increases in the course of economic development. Existing theory based on transaction costs is difficult to relate to these...

We study a unique sample of 1,547 nascent entrepreneurs in Germany and analyze which factors are associated with their self-reported satisfaction regarding their start-up. Our study identifies a new facet of procedural utility and offers new insights about the motivations and goals of nascent...

Parker and Van Praag (2009) showed, based on theory, that the group status of the profession ‘entrepreneurship’ shapes people’s occupational preferences and thus their choice behavior. The current study focuses on the determinants and consequences of the group status of a profession,...

Human capital investment theory suggests that entrepreneurs should be generalists, while those who work for others should be specialists; it also predicts higher incomes for entrepreneurs with generalist skills. An alternative view predicts that those with greater taste for variety are more...

Recent findings by Hamilton (Journal of Political Economy, 2000) suggest that the self-employed do not receive a monetary premium for the risk and uncertainty associated with business ownership. In this paper, I show that that income underreporting by entrepreneurs can explain the lack of...

We combine two empirical observations in a general equilibrium occupational choice model. The first is that entrepreneurs have more control than employees over the employment of and accruals from assets, such as human capital. The second observation is that entrepreneurs enjoy higher returns to...

The years following the Second World War were those of the greatest economic growth that Europe had ever seen. If the countries of the Iberian Peninsula, neutral in the conflict and ruled by dictatorial regimes, enjoyed that growth and had participated in the convergence phenomenon, Ireland,...