This paper analyzes the role of different types of institutions, such as entrepreneurship- facilitating entry conditions, labor market regulations, quality of government, and perception of corruption for individual well-being among self-employed and paid employed individuals. Well-being is...

We argue that entrepreneurial choice proceeds in at least in two steps, with vocational choice nearly always preceding choice of employment status, whether that be self-employment or dependent employment. Since the two decisions are interrelated, analysis of entrepreneurial choice as a single...

We analyze the sources of the rise in the levels of self-employment in Germany since reunification by applying the non-linear Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition technique. This analysis is performed separately for East and West Germany in order to account for the East German recovery of...

We investigate the relationship between new business formation and the level of competitive pressure perceived by manufacturing incumbent establishments. The perceived pressure of competition is stronger the higher the level of entries in the respective industry. This relationship holds not only...

Popular theories claim that innovation activities should be located in large cities because of more favorable environmental conditions that are absent in smaller cities or remote and rural areas. Germany provides a clear counterexample to such theories. We argue that a main force behind the...

We investigate the role of entrepreneurship culture and the historical knowledge base of a region on current levels of new business formation in innovative industries. The analysis is for German regions and covers the time period 1907-2014. We find a pronounced positive relationship between high...

There is a research gap with respect to understanding the role of entrepreneurial culture and tradition for actual start-up behaviour. We combine historical self-employment data (entrepreneurial tradition) with a psychological measure for entrepreneurial attitudes (entrepreneurial culture). The...

This paper investigates whether the relationship between a person 's occupational status and well -being differs across countries with varying institutional contexts. We find that the relationship between job - and life satisfaction of self -employed people as well as of paid employees varies...

This paper reviews the empirical evidence concerning the regional emergence of innovative new businesses. It is argued that analyses using aggregate data that focus on the regional level and do not account for career patterns of innovative founders are of limited value in guiding policy that is...

New business formation plays an important role for economic development. Therefore, policy makers put emphasis on fostering start-up activity. Aims and scope of entrepreneurs can be just as heterogeneous as the structure of new ventures. The project "New business formation and the labor market...