This paper focuses on a new concern in the small firm’s literature, namely what makes a small firm stay in business for a long time. It reflects a change in economic policy, away from an emphasis on volume of start-ups to an emphasis on quality of start-ups. The basic hypothesis is that...

We investigate the manifold posed question: To what extent does investment in human and social capital, besides the effect of talent, enhance entrepreneurial performance? We distinguish between three different performance measures: survival, profits, and generated employment. On the basis of the...

This paper examines the relationship between firm births and job creation in Great Britain. We use a new data set for 60 British regions, covering the whole of Great Britain, between 1980 and 1998. The central theme of the paper is that, with the exception of a recent paper by Audretsch and...

Little empirical evidence provides insight in person-oriented drivers of business survival and success of small business owners. In this paper I perform a duration analysis of business survival amongst young white (selfemployed) small business owners in the U.S. Compulsory exits are...

We investigate which countries have the highest potential to achieve entrepreneurial progress. This progress is defined using an entrepreneurial ladder with five successive steps: “never thought about starting a business”, “thinking about starting a business”, “taking steps to start a...

Most previous studies have found evidence at the aggregate level that female entrepreneurs underperform relative to their male counterparts. This study conducts a comprehensive test of this finding. The test is conducted on a large Swedish sample of 4200 entrepreneurs (405 females) with 1 to 20...

Neu gegründete Unternehmen halten sich besonders lange am Markt, wenn die Gründer eine mittlere Risikobereitschaft aufweisen. Dies zeigt eine aktuelle empirische Studie. Sind die Unternehmer sehr risikoscheu oder aber besonders risikofreudig, hat dies negative Auswirkungen auf die...

Existenzgründer aus Arbeitslosigkeit schaffen nicht nur ihren eigenen Arbeitsplatz, der in vielen Fällen dauerhaft Bestand hat. Häufig geben diese Selbständigen auch weiteren Menschen Arbeit. Wie eine gemeinsame Studie des DIW Berlin und des Instituts für die Zukunft der Arbeit (IZA Bonn)...

One of the main instruments which was introduced with the 'Hartz-Reforms' was a start-up subsidy called Me Inc. ('Ich-AG'). This instrument was introduced in addition to the Bridging Allowance ('Überbrückungsgeld') which had already been implemented in the 1980s. Between 2003 and 2006 more...

In this report, we study the development of Finnish startup firms based on both survey and register data. The sample includes all firms that were founded in the first half of the year 2005, and those firms have been monitored for eight years. We find that entrepreneurs in growth-oriented...