The economic effects of non-compete agreements have received increasing attention from academics and policymakers. This paper investigates how non-compete policies affect different types of self-employment. We exploit policy reforms in Utah and Massachusetts in 2016 and 2018, which decreased the...

The 2D:4D digit ratio, the ratio of the length of the 2nd digit to the length of the 4th digit, is often considered a proxy for testosterone exposure in utero. A recent study by Nicolaou et al. (2018) reported an association between the lefthand 2D:4D and self-employment (in a sample of about...

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...

We investigate heterogeneous effects of new digital technologies on the individual-level employment- and wage dynamics in the U.S. labor market in the period from 2011-2018. We employ three measures that reflect different aspects of impacts of new digital technologies on occupations. The first...

As the policy debate on entrepreneurship increasingly centers on firm growth in terms of job creation, it is important to better understand which variables influence the first hiring decision and which ones influence the subsequent survival as an employer. Using the German Socioeconomic Panel...

A proposed explanation for why business creation is often found to increase in recessions is that there are two components to entrepreneurship – “opportunity” and “necessity” – the latter of which is mostly counter-cyclical. Although there is some agreement on the conceptual...

As the policy debate on entrepreneurship increasingly centers on firm growth in terms of job creation, it is important to better understand which variables influence the first hiring decision and which ones influence the subsequent survival as an employer. Using the German Socioeconomic Panel...

We investigate the importance of firm-bank relationships for the international transmission of bank distress to the real economy. Using a large panel of matched financial statements of firms of all sizes and their relationship banks in Germany, we find that banks with losses from proprietary...

Tax competition for capital has led to a trend where many countries levy lower taxes on interest income, often introducing differential taxation between interest and business income. This study analyzes the effect on firm debt usage. We exploit Germany's 2009 tax reform, which introduced a final...

A proposed explanation for why business creation is often found to increase in recessions is that there are two components to entrepreneurship - "opportunity" and "necessity" - the latter of which is mostly counter-cyclical. Although there is some agreement on the conceptual distinction between...