A stylized fact of economic development is the structural transformation of countries from traditional, mainly agricultural societies to modern economies dominated by manufacturing and services. In this paper we provide an endogenous growth model to illuminate the role of entrepreneurial...

Start-ups of new firms are important for economic growth. However, start-up rates differ significantly between countries and within regions of the same country. A large empirical literature studies the reasons for this and attempts to identify the regional determinants of start-ups. In contrast,...

The success of new start-up firms often depends on timing. It is valuable for the potential entrepreneur to wait for the right moment before starting a new firm. In this paper we provide a theoretical model to determine the optimal time for starting a new firm. We integrate insights from the...

Support for entrepreneurship is widely seen as a mechanism to facilitate prosperity and peace in a growing number of post-conflict states. In this paper I critically evaluate this view. I argue that entrepreneurship is a ubiquitous quality in post-conflict states but not necessarily always for...

We propose that the rate of creation and failure of start-up firms can be modelled as a search and matching process, following labor market matching models. Setting out an endogenous growth model with entrepreneurship we derive a Entrepreneurship Beveridge Curve, through which we illustrate that...

Entrepreneurship in most advanced economies is in decline. This comes as a surprise: many scholars have expected an upsurge in entrepreneurship. What are the reasons for the decline? In this paper I first document the extent of the decline in terms of entrepreneurial entry rates; the share of...

Africa is not only the poorest and most rural continent, it is also the most youthful continent in terms of population. Given the large number of young job seekers that will enter the labor market over the next decade, we need a better understanding of rural non-farm entrepreneurship,...