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...

Persistence of entrepreneurship over longer periods of time could indicate a culture of entrepreneurship among the local population that may be an important factor for regional development, but does persistence of economic activity require cultural transmission? We exploit the diverse historical...