In this paper it is argued that locus of control beliefs and preferences concerning state action negatively affect the formation of new firms in former socialist countries. For this purpose Kirzner's theory of costless entrepreneurship is reviewed and criticized. German reunification, in which...

Occupational Licensing may reduce the entry of minorities, such as migrants, into a profession if the likelihood of fulfilling the licensing requirements is lower in this group. While policy makers typically justify occupational licensing on the grounds of quality control it, thus, also has the...

The literature has identified a number of determinants of energy efficiency measures (EEMs) in firms, such as investment costs, expected profitability, the level of information and firm size. Instead of contributing a comprehensive analysis of this sort this paper theoretically and empirically...

Mit der Einführung der Meisterprämien in verschiedenen Bundesländern seit 2013, die einen finanziellen Anreiz für eine abgeschlossene Meisterausbildung darstellen, wurde beabsichtigt, die Ungleichstellung zwischen universitärer und beruflicher Ausbildung im deutschen Bildungssystem...

Based on a trait-oriented approach, Big Five personality traits have been repeatedly shown to affect entrepreneurial action. In the last two decades, a new literature stream on the Big Five has emerged in the field of psychology that has partly moved away from a traitbased perspective towards a...

Deutschland hat sich ehrgeizige Klimaschutzziele im Gebäudesektor gesetzt. Bis 2050 soll der Gebäudebestand nahezu klimaneutral sein. Dies bedingt die umfangreiche Sanierung fast aller Wohnungen und Wirtschaftsimmobilien. Tatsächlich stockt die energetische Sanierung jedoch, die vorhandenen...

Sweden has gradually increased its carbon tax within the past 25 years and imposes the world's highest tax on carbon dioxide emissions today. This paper examines the impact of the Swedish carbon tax on residential carbon emissions as well as on consumer behavior. We perform...

We use a field experiment on energy billing in a German region to evaluate the effect of two behavioral nudges (consumption feedback and social comparison) on electricity consumption. Similar experiments have revealed significant treatment effects, yet theindividual variance has proven to be...

Difference-in-difference estimation is a popular tool to gauge the effects of economic policies. In recent years, many papers have applied this tool to the German deregulation of the crafts sector in 2004 to draw lessons regarding the economic effects of occupational licensing. However, a...