This work tries to shed some light on the decision of becoming self-employed with and without employees, distinguishing between paid-employment and unemployment as starting status and exploring if the exposure to foreign competition also influences this decision. In doing so, we apply binary and...

By considering entrepreneurs who hire employees – employers – and entrepreneurs without personnel – own-account workers – as related but distinct groups within entrepreneurship, this work analyzes the roles of different factors in entrepreneurship survival in Europe from a new...

As several European governments develop new start-up programmes during recessions, the appropriateness of these policies recently has become a hot policy issue. This study suggests that the contribution of these incentives is dubious, if aimed to combat economic and jobs crises as part of the...

Resumen: Este trabajo resume los principales resultados de las investigaciones empíricas sobre la dinámica del autoempleo -en particular entrada y éxito- y discute sus posibles implicaciones sobre la efectividad de la política de promoción empresarial. El principal objetivo de este trabajo...

Self-employed workers can be own-account workers who control their own work or employers who not only are their own boss but also direct others (their employees). We expect both types of self-employed, i.e., own-account workers and employers, to enjoy more independence in determining their work...

This paper examines the impact of employment protection legislation (EPL) on hiring decisions by own-account workers and firing decisions by very small firms (one to four employees). Using data from the EU-15 countries, our results show that the strictness of employment protection legislation is...

Work effort varies greatly across employees, as evidenced by substantial differences in absence rates. Moreover, absenteeism causes sizeable output losses. Using data from the European Community Household Panel (ECHP), this paper investigates absence behaviour of family employees, i.e. workers...