Persistent differences in the level of business ownership across countries have attracted the attention of scientific as well as political debate. Cultural as well as economic influences are assumed to play a role. This paper deals with the influence of cultural attitudes towards uncertainty on...

The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) presents an annual assessment of the national level of ‘early-stage’ entrepreneurial activity and the institutional conditions to which it is subject in a large number of countries. Within the framework of GEM a TEA (Total early-stage Entrepreneurial...

This chapter investigates the relation between changes in self-employment and changes in unemployment at the regional level in Spain in the period 1979-2001. We estimate a vector autoregression model as proposed by Audretsch, Carree, van Stel and Thurik (2005) using a data base for Spanish...

This paper re-examines the link between new firm formation and subsequent employment growth. It investigates whether it is possible to have the wrong type of entrepreneurship—defined as new firm formation which leads to zero or even negative subsequent employment growth. It uses a very similar...

This paper examines the prevalence and the determinants of informal entrepreneurial investment activity (i.e. the 3 FFFs –friends, fools and family– and business angels), using a data set of more than 175,000 individuals – including some 4000 informal investors – in a large number of...

Despite the fact that the main contribution of entrepreneurship theory to economics has been to provide an account of the performance of markets in disequilibrium, little empirical research on entrepreneurship has examined firm entry and exit in this context. In this paper, we attempt to redress...

The recent work of Kim and Mauborgne (2005a) has sought to turn strategic management on its head. They note that the field has been dominated by Porter’s (1980, 1985) competitive strategy and it has placed too much emphasis on the importance of competition and rivalry. By contrast they argue...

Following a centuries-long decline in the rate of self-employment, a remarkable discontinuity in this downward trend since the 1970s and 1980s for many advanced economies seems beyond doubt. In some of these countries we even see a downright and ongoing revival of selfemployment. At the same...

Business dynamics in an industry is generally seen as an important indicator of the industry's level of competitiveness and economic performance. Two types of business dynamics may be distinguished: business dynamics reflecting competition by new-firm entries and business dynamics reflecting...

Policy in developed countries is often based on the assumption that higher business ownership rates induce economic value. Recent microeconomic empirical evidence casts doubts on the validity of this assumption or, at least, leads to a more nuanced view: Especially the top performing business...