A recent literature has emerged providing compelling evidence that a major shift in the organization of the developed economies has been taking place: away from what has been characterized as the managed economy towards the entrepreneurial economy. In particular, the empirical evidence provides...

The self-employed are often reported to be healthier than wage workers; however, the cause of this health difference is largely unknown. The longitudinal nature of the US Health and Retirement Study allows us to gauge the plausibility of two competing explanations for this difference: a...

We study the cyclical pattern of entrepreneurial activity. Results across 22 OECD countries for the period 1972-2007 show that entrepreneurial activity is a leading indicator of the business cycle in a Granger-causality sense. This contradicts existing theoretical hypotheses which predict that...

Total factor productivity of twenty OECD countries for a recent period (1971-2002) is explained using six different models based on the established literature. Traditionally, entrepreneurship is not dealt with in these models. In the present paper it is shown that - when this variable is added -...

Recent studies show that the likelihood of survival differs significantly across firms. Both firm and industry characteristics are hypothesized to account for this heterogenity. Using a longitudinal database of manufacturing firms we investigate whether firm or industry characteristics dominate....

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a series of articles on the linksbetween innovation, the evolution of industry and employment. These relationsprovide the building blocks of a new industrial policy. The articles areincluded in Innovation, Industry Evolution and Employment published by...

The purpose of this paper is to suggest that a fundamental shift in Europe, along with the other OECD countries, is taking place. This shift is from the managed economy to the entrepreneurial economy. While politicians and policy makers have made a plea for guidance in the era of...

The level of entrepreneurship differs considerably across countries and periods. Both thecauses and consequences of entrepreneurship are a matter of extensive scientific debate aswell as of great policy importance. A high level of entrepreneurial activity is assumed andshown to contribute to...

The purpose of this paper is to show how institutional and evolutionary economics provide better insights as to whysome firms survive and others do not than does neoclassical economics. At the heart of the evolutionary theory isthe view that new firms are a manifestation of diversity and that...

We present a new framework for the joint estimation of the default-free government term structure and corporate credit spread curves. By using a data set of liquid, German mark denominated bonds, we show that this yields more realistic spreads than traditionally obtained spread curves that...