Analyzing a cross-country panel of 16 OECD countries from 2002 to 2005, we find that higher unemployment benefits crowd out nascent entrepreneurial activity. Our results hold regardless of entrepreneurial motivation (necessity or opportunity) and entrepreneurial type (imitative or innovative).

We are currently investigating genetic influences on self-employment in an international research consortium using genome-wide association studies (GWAS). By meta-analysing results from numerous independent samples we address identification issues arising from multiple testing. To our knowledge,...

We analyze the effect of peer influence on the diffusion of an innovative network good. We argue that the adopters of a network good have an incentive to convince others to purchase the same product because their utility depends on the number of other users. This peer-effect influences...

This article analyzes the relationship between the usage of Internet-based technologies, different types of innovation, and performance at the firm level. Data for the empirical investigation originates from a sample of 7,302 European enterprises. The empirical results show that Internet-based...

We study a unique sample of 1,547 nascent entrepreneurs in Germany and analyze which factors are associated with their start-up satisfaction. Our results identify a group of nascent entrepreneurs that “cannot get satisfaction” with their start-up because they did not choose to become...

We examine whether having previously been self-employed is a negative signal on the job market. In a UK field experiment where two applications of otherwise equally qualified individuals were sent out in response to the same vacancies in human resource management, we find that entrepreneurs...

A series of field and laboratory experiments were conducted in which single-sex groups of male or female students competed in different intellectual tasks to earn money or university grades (N = 291). The supervisor of these groups was one of several young and attractive males or females. The...

Recent discussions in decision sciences and behavioral economics stress the potential impact of affect on decision outcomes. In the present study, we conducted random-assignment experiments (N = 253) to investigate whether affect can cause temporary fluctuations in risk preferences. In...

This paper studies the adoption times of various e-business technologies in a large sample of firms from 10 different industry sectors and 25 European countries between 1994 and 2002. The results show that the probability of adoption increases with the number of previously adopted e-business...

This paper studies the diffusion of multiple related technologies among firms. The results suggest an endogenous acceleration mechanism for technology adoption: The more advanced a firm is in using a particular set of technologies, the more likely it is to adopt additional related technologies....