Mit Paneldaten für sämtliche niedersächsischen Industriebetriebe der Jahre 1995 bis 2002 werden drei Hypothesen aus dem Modell von Hopenhayn (Econometrica 1992) getestet: (H1) Firmen, die in der Periode t aus dem Markt ausscheiden, waren in der Periode t-1 weniger produktiv als Firmen, die in...

Using a large recent representative sample of the German population this paper contributes to the entrepreneurship literature by empirically testing the hypothesis that young and small firms are hothouses for nascent entrepreneurs. The empirical estimation takes the rare events nature of...

Folklore has it that the comparatively low proportion of self-employed in Germany in in part due to a habit that might be termed "stigmatisation of failure": taking a second chance to build one's own firm after failing as a self-employed person is said to be much more difficult here than in...