We investigate the reasons for the pronounced regional differences of new business formation after the transformation from a socialist planned system to a market economy in East Germany. Relatively high start-up rates are found in regions that had a well-qualified workforce and a relatively high...

We investigate how initial conditions that existed in East Germany at the end of the socialist regime impact regional development during the turbulent shock transition to a market economic system. Our investigation spans a period of almost 30 years. Both the self-employment rate (an indication...

What characterizes regions where right-wing populist parties are relatively successful? A prominent hypothesis proposed in recent literature claims that places that are "left behind" or "do not matter" are a breeding ground for the rise of populism. We re-examine this hypothesis by analyzing the...

The COVID-19 pandemic severely affected not only incumbent firms, but also the emergence of start-ups. This paper investigates and analyzes the pandemic's effect on new business formation, as well as business exits and insolvencies, in Germany. We find that the overall level of business...

A region's present-day economic performance can be deeply anchored in historical factors. We provide the first systematic evidence of a deep imprinting effect in the context of Roman rule in the south-western part of Germany nearly 2,000 years ago. Our analysis reveals that regions in the former...

This paper investigates the persistence of entrepreneurship in the region of Kaliningrad between 1925 and 2010. During this time period the area experienced a number of extremely disruptive shocks including; devastation caused by World War II, a nearly complete replacement of the native German...

This paper summarizes the role of entrepreneurship in the East German transformation process that followed the breakdown of the socialist regime and subsequent unification with West Germany. The main aim of this exercise is to derive conclusions and recommendations for a potential unification of...

This paper reviews the results of studies that investigate the most important active labour market policy (ALMP) measures in Germany. A particular focus is on programs devoted to foster entrepreneurship which can make important contributions to a country's growth and social welfare. The...

We investigate the persistence of levels of self-employment and new business formation in different time periods and under different framework conditions. The analysis shows that high levels of regional self-employment and new business formation tend to be persistent for periods as long as 80...

Studies for established market economies such as West Germany (Fritsch and Mueller, 2007), and Sweden (Andersson and Koster, 2011) have shown that regional start-up rates tend to show a relatively high level of persistence and path dependency over periods of 10-15 years. One main reason for this...