We assess the relevance of formal education for the productivity of the self-employed and distinguish between opportunity entrepreneurs, who voluntarily pursue a business opportunity, and necessity entrepreneurs, who lack alternative employment options. We expect differences in the returns to...

Is it possible to combat global climate change through North-to-South technology transfer even without a global climate treaty? Or do carbon leakage and the rebound effect imply that it is possible to take advantage of technological improvements under the umbrella of a global arrangement only?...

Germany experienced a unique rise in the level of self-employment in the first two decades following unification. Applying the non-linear Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition technique, we find that the main factors driving these changes in the overall level of self-employment are demographic...

We provide, for the first time, comparative evidence of the impact of various types of extreme events - natural disasters, terrorism, and violent conflicts - on the perceptions of entrepreneurs concerning some key entrepreneurial issues - such as fear of failure in starting a business venture,...

In this paper, we use the Global Gas Model to analyze the perspectives and infrastructure needs of the European natural gas market until 2050. Three pathways of natural gas consumption in a future low-carbon energy system in Europe are envisaged: i) a decreasing natural gas consumption, along...

A personal bankruptcy law that allows for a "fresh start" after bankruptcy reduces the individual risk involved in entrepreneurial activity. On the other hand, as risk shifts to creditors who recover less of their credit after a debtor's bankruptcy, lenders may charge higher interest rates or...

Based on representative micro data for Germany, we compare the incomes of self-employed with those of wage workers. Our results show that the median self-employed entrepreneur with employees earns significantly more than the median salaried employee, while the median solo entrepreneur earns...

Biochar is a carbon-rich solid obtained from the heating of biomass in the (near) absence of oxygen in a process called pyrolysis. Its soil incorporation is increasingly discussed as a means to sequester carbon in soils and, thus, to help mitigate climate change. When deployed in agricultural...

This paper applies the concept of damage coefficients introduced in Houba and Kremers (2008) to provide an estimate of the cost of climate change - in particular the cost of changes in mean regional temperature and precipitation - to the fruit vegetation sector. We concentrate on the production...

This paper studies technological change in renewable energies, providing empirical evidence on the determinants of innovative activity with a special emphasis on the role of knowledge spillovers. We investigate two major renewable energy technologies - wind and solar - across a panel of 21 OECD...