Does entrepreneurial optimism affect business performance? Using a unique data setbased on repeated survey design, we investigate this relationship empirically. Ourmeasures of ‘optimism’ and ‘realism’ are derived from comparing the turnovergrowth expectations of 133 owners-managers with...

The well-documented positive correlation between income risk and wealth was interpreted as evidence for high amounts of precautionary wealth in various studies. However, the large estimates emerged from pooling non-entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs without controlling for heterogeneity. This paper...

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...