We study the origins of entrepreneurship (culture) in the United States. For the analysis we make use of a quasi-natural experiment - the gold rush in the second part of the 19th century. We argue that the presence of gold attracted individuals with entrepreneurial personality traits. Due to a...

Globalization brings both good and bad job news. The bad news is that jobs will be outsourced from high-cost developed countries into lower-cost locations as soon as the associated economic activity becomes mechanized and predictable. The good news is that globalization creates opportunities...

This paper documents that a process of industrial restructuring has been transforming the developed economies, where large corporations are accounting for less economic activity and small firms are accounting for a greatershare of economic activity. Not all countries, however, are experiencing...

This paper investigates the dynamic relationship between self-employment and unemployment rates. On the one hand, high unemployment rates may lead to start-up activity of self-employed individuals (the “refugee” effect). On the other hand, higher rates of self-employment may indicate...

We investigate what determines regions' entrepreneurial behavior and the impact of it on regional economic performance. We argue that economic knowledge differs not only from traditional factors of production due to its public goods characteristic but it is also uncertain. In that perspective,...