Applied econometrics has recently emphasized the identification of causal parameters for policy analysis. This revolution has yet to fully propagate to the field of regional science. We examine the scope for application of the matching approach – part of the modern applied econometrics toolkit...

We use the case of EU enlargement in 2004 to investigate the impact of economic integration on regional income growth. Being particularly interested in studying the effects ‘at the margin’, we track the relative performance of regions adjacent to both sides of the integration border...

Between 2003 and 2005, the German government passed an unprecedented package of labor market reforms, commonly known as the Hartz-reforms. This led to a "labor market miracle" with sharply declining unemployment rates. This paper examines these reforms at the regional level and provides a...

We explore the role of different types of self-employment for a persistence of the regional level of entrepreneurship over time. Our analysis for West German regions shows relatively strong effects for the historical self- employment rate in the non-agricultural sector, particularly in...

We investigate the persistence of levels of self-employment and new business formation in different time periods and under different framework conditions. The analysis shows that high levels of regional self-employment and new business formation tend to be persistent for periods as long as 80...

This paper reviews the empirical evidence of persistent levels of regional self-employment and new business formation and the effect this persistence has on development. It is argued that a regional culture of entrepreneurship plays an important role in explaining persistence of...

There is a research gap with respect to understanding the role of entrepreneurial culture and tradition for actual start-up behaviour. We combine historical self-employment data (entrepreneurial tradition) with a psychological measure for entrepreneurial attitudes (entrepreneurial culture). The...

In this paper, we study the long- and short-run relationship between regional public debt and economic performance for a sample of German federal states over the period of four decades (1970-2010). By choosing a sample of regional entities with comparable institutional settings, we complement...

The financial crisis affected regions in Europe in a different magnitude. This is why we examine whether regions which incorporate banks with a higher intermediation quality grow faster in “normal” times and are more resilient in “bad” ones. For this purpose, we measure the...

This paper investigates the effects of public investment in infrastructure on private output for Germany. Using a multivariate framework we explore the impact of a diverging selection of variables on the ensuing estimates and document confidence intervals computed following the bootstrap...