This paper highlights the ‘magic of diasporas’ − as a source of progress in a globalizing world − with special attention for migrant (or ethnic) entrepreneurship. The present study aims to identify and examine the critical critical success factors of migrant enterprises and their...

This discussion paper led to a publication in the <A href="http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/rne.2011.10.2/rne.2011.10.2.1278/rne.2011.10.2.1278.xml">'Review of Network Economics'</A>, 2011, 10(2), 1-20.<P> In this paper we test the celebrated `Strength of weak ties' theory of Granovetter (1973). We test two hypotheses on the network structure in a data set of collaborating economists. While we find...</p></a>

This discussion paper resulted in a chapter in (L.P. Dana (Ed.)) <I>Handbook of Research on Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurship</I>, pp. 42-60, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2007.<P> Co-ethnic employment refers to the stylised fact of many labour markets that there is an over-representation of workers of the same...</p></i>

Finding proper policy instruments to promote productivity growth features prominently on the Lisbon agenda and is central in many national as well as European policy debates. In view of the increased mobility of high-skilled workers in Europe, ongoing globalization and increased interregional...

We investigate the manifold posed question: To what extent does investment in human and social capital, besides the effect of talent, enhance entrepreneurial performance? We distinguish between three different performance measures: survival, profits, and generated employment. On the basis of the...

There is a small but growing literature on the determinants of social capital. Most of these studies use a measure of trust to define social capital empirically. In this paper we use three different measures of social capital: the size of the individual’s social network, the extent of their...

We analyze the impact of adolescents' friendship relations in their final-year class of highschool on subsequent labor market success. Based on a typology of network positions we locateeach student within the social system of the school class as either: an isolate, a sycophant,a broker or a...

In this paper we describe a Sequential Importance Sampling (SIS) procedure for counting the number of vertex covers in general graphs. The performance of SIS depends heavily on how close the SIS proposal distribution is to a uniform one over a suitably restricted set. The proposed algorithm...

This paper evaluates the strength of social and economic forces that affect the pressure to emigrate 'out of Africa' for four distinctly different African countries (Morocco, Egypt, Senegal and Ghana). In general, great expectations about attaining a higher living standard and expected low job...

This discussion paper resulted in a publication in the <A HREF="http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=9148929&fileId=S2050124213000209">'Network Science'</A>, 2014, 96(5), 936-948.<P> This paper analyzes the relationship between unexplained racial/ethnic wage differentials on the one hand and social network segregation, as measured by inbreeding homophily, on the other hand. Our...</p></a>