This policy brief examines the phenomenon of home-based entrepreneurship. It provides information on the types of businesses that entrepreneurs are most likely to operate out of the home, their reasons for this choice, and barriers to the development of home-based businesses. It examines how...

Resource-rich countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have the highest youth unemployment rate in the world. While other parts of the world are experiencing an increasing trend in new firms' formation as a potential solution for their unemployment problem, the MENA region has the...

Young firms with the ability to internationalize early and decisively have received much attention in recent academic discussion. However, relatively little is known about the underlying processes that enable them to skip several stages of the internationalization process. We contribute to this...

Does heterogeneity in the educational backgrounds of the founders matter for firm success? Are team foundations more successful than single entrepreneurs? These questions are analysed using data on academic spinoffs in Germany. Firm success is measured by employment growth. I find that team...

This paper analyzes how companies of immigrant entrepreneurs in knowledgeintensive industries differ from companies of native entrepreneurs with respect to start-up characteristics, firm survival and innovative performance. I focus on immigrants from the 'recruitment countries' of south and...

We investigate the impact of new business formation on regional employment. The main effects occur after a considerable time lag. Obviously, a large part of the effect is not due to job creation by the newcomers but rather is of indirect nature. This implies that a large part of the debate about...

Audretsch and Fritsch (2002) proposed two explanations for the mixed evidence regarding the relationship between new firm formation and regional development. Firstly, they found evidence for the existence of long time lags needed before the main effects of new firm formation on employment change...

We investigate regional differences in the level and the development of regional new business formation activity. There is a pronounced variance of start-up rates across the regions. The level of regional new firm formation is rather pathdependent so that changes are relatively small. The main...

In our analysis of the impact of new firm formation on regional employment change we identified considerable time lags. We investigated the structure and extent of these time lags by applying the Almon lag model and found that new firms can have both a positive and a negative effect on regional...