The supposed creativity of left-handed and dyslexic individuals may fit well with an entrepreneurial occupation. Empirical evidence from two representative Dutch samples, however, shows that left-handed and dyslexic individuals are not more likely to be(come) entrepreneurs than right-handed and...

We analyze the determinants of reading literacy, mathematical skills and science skills of young immigrant children in The Netherlands. We find that these are affected by age at immigration and whether or not one of the parents is native Dutch.

Using the interaction of language of country of birth and age-at-arrival as instruments, we find strong evidence of a causal effect of English as Additional Language (EAL) on the native–immigrant wage gap for male employees in the UK.

Is India’s high fractionalization associated with mistrust between its two main religious communities? An inter-ethnic trust game field experiment confirms intergroup bias in mutually lower offers between urban Muslims and Hindus in Mumbai. There are no differences in trustworthiness based on...

This study quantifies the disadvantage in literacy skills that arises from the linguistic distance between their mother tongue and host country language, combining individual cross-country data on literacy scores with unique information on the linguistic distance between languages.

This paper examines the impact of employment protection legislation (EPL) on hiring decisions by own-account workers and firing decisions by very small firms (one to four employees). Using data from the EU-15 countries, our results show that the strictness of employment protection legislation is...

Despite the important role of angel investors as critical financial providers for new ventures, little is known regarding how the institutions present in very different institutional environments impact their investment decisions. While angel investors might be expected to make decisions based...

We study the impact of individual risk attitude on the relationship between product innovation and firm performance, in a model of firm growth with endogenous product selection. We exploit a unique dataset collecting firm-level data on new product introductions and individual attitudes towards...

We show how social ties and contractual factors shape the relationship between entrepreneurs and venture capitalists (VCs). While direct ties result in the VC offering more advice to the entrepreneur, indirect ties result in greater levels of disagreement between VC and entrepreneur. We also...