Entry rates into self-employment increase during recessions and decrease during economic upswings. I show that this is mostly explained by the higher unemployment rate during a recession, together with the fact that at all times, unemployed persons have a relatively high propensity to become...

Why are female entrepreneurs so rare? Women have both to a lower entry rate into self-employment and a higher exit rate in Germany. To explain the gender gap, a structural microeconometric model of the transition rates is estimated, which includes a standard risk aversion parameter. As inputs...

A common finding in the entrepreneurship literature is that business creation increases in recessions. This counter-cyclical pattern is examined by separating business creation into two components: “opportunity” and “necessity” entrepreneurship. Although there is general agreement in the...

Entrepreneurship is a local and dynamic phenomenon. We jointly investigate spatial spillovers and time persistence of regional new business formation. Using panel data from all 402 German counties for 1996-2011, we estimate dynamic spatial panel models of business creation in the high-tech and...

We investigate how personal income taxes affect the portfolio share of personal wealth that entrepreneurs invest in their own business. In a reformulation of the standard portfolio choice model that allows for underreporting of private business income to tax authorities, we show that a fall in...

A common and seemingly paradoxical finding in the entrepreneurship literature is that business creation increases in recessions. We investigate this countercyclical pattern by separating business creation into two components: “opportunity” and “necessity” entrepreneurship. Although there...

We investigate how personal income taxes affect the portfolio share of personal wealth that entrepreneurs invest in their own business. In a reformulation of the standard portfolio choice model that allows for underreporting of private business income to tax authorities, we show that a fall in...

A common finding in the entrepreneurship literature is that business creation increases in recessions. This counter-cyclical pattern is examined by separating business creation into two components: “opportunity” and “necessity” entrepreneurship. Although there is general agreement in the...