The 40 years of socialist regime in East Germany were characterized by a massive anti-entrepreneurship policy. We investigate the reemergence of entrepreneurship in East Germany during its transformation to a market economy following the collapse of the East German state in 1989. It took about...

Based on five research papers, the dissertation "Institutions and Entrepreneurship" analyzes institutional influences on entrepreneurship, as well as determinants and effects of institutional change. In particular, the effects of implicit institutions, i.e. societal norms and values, on the...

We investigate the long-run effects of government surveillance on civic capital and economic performance, studying the case of the Stasi in East Germany. Exploiting regional variation in the number of spies and administrative features of the system, we combine a border discontinuity design with...