Studies on the influence of entrepreneurial role models (peers) on the decision to start a firm ar-gue that entrepreneurial role models in the local environment (1) provide opportunities to learn about entrepreneurial tasks and capabilities, and (2) signal that entrepreneurship is a favorable...

This paper investigates the sources of the significantly higher labor force participation of East Ger-man women as compared to their peers in West Germany. The previous literature attributes this to a legacy of socialist labor market policies. This study challenges this hypothesis and...

The main aim of this paper is to enhance our knowledge of the role of regional entrepreneurial culture that is important to foster economic growth. The paper sheds light on regional differences of self-employment and start-up activities in a socialist and post-socialist economy, which is to the...

The paper focuses on regional determinants of entrepreneurship. It basically asks the question which effect different regional characteristics have on new business formation rates in an economy where the level of start-up activity is more or less "zero" across regions since entrepreneurship is...

This paper investigates regional sources of entrepreneurial opportunities of knowledge-intensive start-up activity. Thereby it is investigated whether it makes a difference if the knowledge-intensive sector is a newly emerging industry compared to the case where its location across space could...

Could the industrialization reduce social inequalities? We use the rise of office employment in the early 20th century as a historical experiment to study the effect of technological change on labor market access for vulnerable groups. In regions with industries that were strongly connected to...

This brief research note identifies a causal effect of being Protestant on entrepreneurial choice.

We empirically analyse whether television (TV) can influence entrepreneurial identity and incidence. To identify causal effects, we utilise a quasi-natural experiment setting. During the division of Germany after WWII into West Germany with a free-market economy and the socialistic East Germany...

Can TV influence the entrepreneurial decisions of individuals? To identify causal effects, we utilize a quasi-natural experiment, namely that during the division of Germany after WWI into the capitalistic West Germany and the socialistic East Germany, West TV was exogenously available only in...

There is a large and successful literature exploiting the division and re-unification of Germany as a natural experiment for analysing the effects of political regimes on economic behaviour. This paper contributes to this literature by reassessing the role of legacy effects of socialist labour...