We investigate the effects that regional start-up activity has on employment in new and in incumbent businesses. The analysis is performed for West German regions over the 1987-2002 period. It shows that the effects of new businesses on employment in the incumbents are significantly positive and...

We analyze the regional distribution and the effect of people in creative occupations based on data for more than 450 regions in eight European countries. The geographic distribution of the creative class is highly uneven. The creative class is not attracted to highly urbanized regions per se,...

Entrepreneurs are found to have balanced skill sets and most have worked in small firms before starting their own business. In light of this, we compare the skill sets of employees working in businesses of different size to the skill sets of entrepreneurs using a rich data set on the applied...

We investigate the effect of broad personality traits-the Big Five-on an individual's decision to become self- employed. In particular, we test an overall indicator of the entrepreneurial personality. Since we find that the level of self-employment varies considerably across professions, we also...

This paper investigates economic and subjective effects of public business assistance delivered to nascent entrepreneurs in Germany. Employing cluster analysis, we explore the actual scope and intensity of business assistance used. Then we analyze predictors of take-up and perceived usefulness...

Spinoffs firms are an important source of industry dynamics and innovation. While an emerging body of literature identifies strategic disagreements and ideas as determinants of spinoffs, neither of them can completely explain the spinoff process. Mere disagreements or brilliant flashes of ideas...

This paper examines the use of social capital in the venture creation process. We compare solo entrepreneurs (n=182) and new venture teams (n=274) from a random sample of start-ups in innovative industries and test social capital use and its effects on firm performance. Our results reveal that...