What characterizes regions where right‐wing populist parties are relatively successful? A prominent hypothesis proposed in the emerging “geography of discontent” literature claims that places that are “left behind” constitute a breeding ground for the rise of populism. We re‐examine...

We use the historical self-employment rate as an indicator of a regional culture of entrepreneurship and link this measure to economic growth in recent periods. The results indicate that German regions with a high level of entrepreneurship in the mid- 1920s have higher start-up rates about 80...

Emerging literature shows that spatial differences in entrepreneurship tend to persist over longer periods of time. A potential mechanism underlying this pronounced persistence is that high levels of start-up activity lead to the emergence of a regional culture and a supporting environment in...

We investigate the role of entrepreneurship culture and the historical knowledge base of a region on current levels of new business formation in innovative industries. The analysis is for German regions and covers the time period 1907-2014. We find a pronounced positive relationship between high...

This paper reviews the empirical evidence of persistent levels of regional self-employment and new business formation and the effect this persistence has on development. It is argued that a regional culture of entrepreneurship plays an important role in explaining persistence of...