The promotion and support of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is an essential component of policies designed to help improve Europe’s economic performance. A crucial issue is whether SMEs face difficulty obtaining bank loans. Using pre-crisis survey data from 2005 and 2006 for nearly...

The entrepreneurial capacity in an economy is a key determinant of economic growth and productivity improvements. This paper uses survey data from the 15 EU Member States and the US to investigate two aspects of entrepreneurial capacity: latent and actual entrepreneurship. Latent...

Little is known about the relation between entrepreneurship and the extent of psychiatric symptoms. Validated psychiatric symptom scores are seldom used for non-clinical reasons. One prevalent symptom that deserves our interest is Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). ADHD is a...

The job satisfaction of self-employed and paid-employed workers is analyzed using the European Community Household Panel for the EU-15 covering the years 1994–2001. We distinguish between two types of job satisfaction: job satisfaction in terms of type of work and job satisfaction in terms of...

Based upon two strands of literature, this paper hypothesizes a U-shaped relationship between a country’s rate of entrepreneurial dynamics and its level of economic development. This would imply a different scope for entrepreneurship policy across subsequent stages of development. Regressing...

In the 1980s stagflation and high unemployment caused a renewed interest in supply side economics and in factors determining economic growth. Simultaneously, the 1980s and 1990s have seen a reevaluation of the role of small firms and a renewed attention for entrepreneurship. The goal of this...

Personal strategies of owners/founders of small business startups are related to performance and to environmental uncertainty. This is done using a longitudinal data set. Personal strategies are operationalized by a behavioral measure of the manners in which small business founders deal with...

We develop a two equation error correction model to investigate determinants of and dynamic interaction between changes in profits and number of firms in retailing. An explicit distinction is made between the effects of actual competition among incumbents, new firms competition, and potential...

Industrial economists surmise a relation between the size distribution of firms and performance. Usually, attention is focused on the high end of the size distribution. The widely used four-firm seller concentration ratio, C4, ignores what happens at the low end of the size distribution. We...