@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} } @article{CaliendoHogenackerKuennetal.2015, author = {Caliendo, Marco and Hogenacker, Jens and Kuenn, Steffen and Wiessner, Frank}, title = {Subsidized start-ups out of unemployment: a comparison to regular business start-ups}, series = {Small business economics : an international journal}, volume = {45}, journal = {Small business economics : an international journal}, number = {1}, publisher = {Springer}, address = {Dordrecht}, issn = {0921-898X}, doi = {10.1007/s11187-015-9646-0}, pages = {165 -- 190}, year = {2015}, abstract = {Offering unemployed individuals a subsidy to become self-employed is a widespread active labor market policy strategy. Previous studies have illustrated its high effectiveness to help participants escaping unemployment and improving their labor market prospects compared to other unemployed individuals. However, the examination of start-up subsidies from a business perspective has only received little attention to date. Using a new dataset based on a survey allows us to compare subsidized start-ups out of unemployment with regular business founders, with respect to not only personal characteristics but also business outcomes. The results indicate that previously unemployed entrepreneurs face disadvantages in variables correlated with entrepreneurial ability and access to capital. Nineteen months after start-up, the subsidized businesses experience higher survival, but lag behind regular business founders in terms of income, business growth and innovation. Moreover, we show that expected deadweight effects related to start-up subsidies occur on a (much) lower scale than usually assumed.}, language = {en} } @article{CaliendoKuenn2014, author = {Caliendo, Marco and Kuenn, Steffen}, title = {Regional effect heterogeneity of start-up subsidies for the unemployed}, series = {Regional studies}, volume = {48}, journal = {Regional studies}, number = {6}, publisher = {Routledge, Taylor \& Francis Group}, address = {Abingdon}, issn = {0034-3404}, doi = {10.1080/00343404.2013.851784}, pages = {1108 -- 1134}, year = {2014}, abstract = {Sin embargo, todavia no se han analizado los efectos potencialmente heterogeneos de los programas para proyectos empresariales en los diferentes mercados laborales de ambito regional. Las restricciones en la demanda de empleo en areas mas desfavorecidas generalmente hacen aumentar el numero de personas que aprovechan estos programas porque las ofertas laborales son limitadas. Sin embargo, la supervivencia de empresas en estas areas es tambien mas baja, de modo que sigue sin estar claro el efecto general. Basandonos en datos alemanes, observamos que el proceso de creacion, el desarrollo de negocios y la eficacia de los programas estan influenciados por las condiciones economicas imperantes en el momento de la creacion de la empresa.}, language = {en} }