Small business lending programs designed to move disadvantaged low-income people into business ownership have been difficult to implement successfully in the US context. Based in part on the premise that financing requirements are an entry barrier limiting the ability of aspiring entrepreneurs...

Die Gründungsförderung der Bundesagentur für Arbeit ist im Rahmen der aktiven Arbeitsmarktpolitik im Rechtskreis SGB III nach wie vor eines der bedeutsamsten Instrumente. Zum 1. August 2006 löste der Gründungszuschuss (§ 57 SGB III) seine beiden Vorgänger, das Überbrückungsgeld und den...

This paper focuses on the question of whether improving the competence of new business founders by means of coaching and training programs enhances the duration of self-employment. In our analysis we focus on support activities that are provided in addition to a financial subsidy and which...

The amendment to the German Trade and Crafts Code in 2004 offers a natural experiment to asses the causal effects of this reform on the probabilities of being self-employed and transition into and out of self-employment, using cross-sections (2002-2006) of German microcensus data. This study...

Many countries support business start-ups to spur economic growth and reduce unemployment with different programmes. Evaluation studies of such programmes commonly rely on the conditional independence assumption (CIA), allowing a causal interpretation of the results only if all relevant...