This paper studies the impact of an existing industrial structure in a region on the number of start-ups in this region. The aim is to detect path-dependencies in the regional industry structure. To this end we study empirically the regional factors that influence start-up rates. The approach...

This paper contributes to the policy-relevant question whether self-employment is a way out of (long-term) unemployment. We estimate the relationship between the entry rate into self-employment and previous (long-term) unemployment on the basis of pseudo-panel data for Germany in the period...

The amendment to the German Trade and Crafts Code in 2004 offers a natural experiment to asses the causal effects of this reform on the probabilities of being self-employed and transition into and out of self-employment, using cross-sections (2002-2006) of German microcensus data. This study...