Since the beginning of the transformation of East Germany from a socialist planned economy to a market economy, there has been an ambitious political goal of fostering entrepreneurial activity in that part of the country. One of the most-hoped for results of this undertaking is the anticipated...

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,...

This study is the first to examine the decision to re-enter business ownership by entrepreneurs who have exited their first business using a longitudinal matched employer-employee database. This kind of data allow us to distinguish between those serial entrepreneurs who re-enter business...

This paper investigates the dynamic relationship between self-employment and unemployment rates. On the one hand, high unemployment rates may lead to start-up activity of self-employed individuals (the "refugee" effect). On the other hand, higher rates of self-employment may indicate increased...

We examine whether founders’ backgrounds influence new firm survival in the early years after start-up. We develop hypotheses linking founders' backgrounds to pre-entry capabilities associated with entrepreneurial human capital, highlighting the cases of spin-offs and habitual...

This paper examines to what extent recent empirical evidence can collectively and systematically substantiate the claim that entrepreneurship has important economic value. Hence, a systematic review is provided that answers the question: What is the contribution of entrepreneurs to the economy...

This paper investigates the relation between changes in self-employment and changes in unemployment at the regional level in Spain in the period 1979-2001. We estimate a vector autoregression model as proposed by Audretsch, Carree, van Stel and Thurik (2005) using a data base for Spanish...

What makes entrepreneurs different? Using a cross-country dataset, this paper explores essential parts of the value system of entrepreneurs in Western European countries by comparing value items of the self-employed to that of the non-self-employed. The self- employed rate values higher that aim...