@article{CaliendoGoethnerWeissenberger2019,
  author    = {Caliendo, Marco and Goethner, Maximilian and Weißenberger, Martin},
  title     = {Entrepreneurial persistence beyond survival: Measurement and determinants},
  series = {Journal of Small Business Management},
  volume    = {58},
  journal   = {Journal of Small Business Management},
  number    = {3},
  publisher = {Taylor \& Francis},
  address   = {London},
  pages     = {32},
  year      = {2019},
  abstract  = {Entrepreneurial persistence is demonstrated by an entrepreneur's continued positive maintenance of entrepreneurial motivation and constantly renewed active engagement in a new business venture despite counterforces or enticing alternatives. It thus is a crucial factor for entrepreneurs when pursuing and exploiting their business opportunities and in realizing potential economic gains and benefits. Using rich data on a representative sample of German business founders, we investigated the determinants of entrepreneurial persistence. Next to observed survival, we also constructed a hybrid persistence measure capturing the motivational dimension of persistence. We analyzed the influence of individual-level (human capital and personality) and business-related characteristics on both measures as well as their relative importance. We found that the two indicators emphasize different aspects of persistence. For the survival indicator, the predictive power was concentrated in business characteristics and human capital, while for hybrid persistence the dominant factors were business characteristics and personality. Finally, we showed that results were heterogeneous across subgroups. In particular, formerly unemployed founders did not differ in survival chances, but they were more likely to lack a high psychological commitment to their business ventures.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{CaliendoKuennWeissenberger2016,
  author    = {Caliendo, Marco and Kuenn, Steffen and Weißenberger, Martin},
  title     = {Personality traits and the evaluation of start-up subsidies},
  series = {European economic review},
  volume    = {86},
  journal   = {European economic review},
  publisher = {Elsevier},
  address   = {Amsterdam},
  issn      = {0014-2921},
  doi       = {10.1016/j.euroecorev.2015.11.008},
  pages     = {87 -- 108},
  year      = {2016},
  abstract  = {Many countries support business start-ups to spur economic growth and reduce unemployment with different programmes. Evaluation studies of such programmes commonly rely on the conditional independence assumption (CIA), allowing a causal interpretation of the results only if all relevant variables affecting participation and success are accounted for. While the entrepreneurship literature has emphasised the important role of personality traits as predictors for start-up decisions and business success, these variables were neglected in evaluation studies so far due to data limitations. In this paper, we evaluate a new start-up subsidy for unemployed individuals in Germany using propensity score matching under the CIA. Having access to rich administrative-survey data allows us to incorporate usually unobserved personality measures in the evaluation and investigate their impact on the estimated effects. We find strong positive effects on labour market reintegration and earned income for the new programme. Most importantly, results including and excluding individuals\&\#1523; personalities do not differ significantly, implying that concerns about potential overestimation of programme effects in the absence of personality measures might be less justified if the set of other control variables is rich enough.},
  language  = {en}
}