@article{BertschekBlockKritikosetal.2023,
  author    = {Bertschek, Irene and Block, Joern and Kritikos, Alexander and Stiel, Caroline},
  title     = {German financial state aid during Covid-19 pandemic},
  series = {Entrepreneurship \& regional development},
  volume    = {36},
  journal   = {Entrepreneurship \& regional development},
  number    = {1-2},
  publisher = {Taylor \& Francis},
  address   = {London},
  issn      = {0898-5626},
  doi       = {10.1080/08985626.2023.2196267},
  pages     = {76 -- 97},
  year      = {2023},
  abstract  = {In response to strong revenue and income losses facing a large share of self-employed individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic, the German federal government introduced a €50bn emergency-aid program. Based on real-time online-survey data comprising more than 20,000 observations, we analyze the impact of this program on the confidence to survive the crisis. We investigate how the digitalization level of self-employed individuals influences the program's effectiveness. Employing propensity score matching, we find that the emergency-aid program had only moderately positive effects on the confidence of self-employed to survive the crisis. However, self-employed whose businesses were highly digitalized, benefitted much more from the state aid than those whose businesses were less digitalized. This only holds true for those self-employed, who started the digitalization processes already before the crisis. Taking a regional perspective, we find suggestive evidence that the quality of the regional broadband infrastructure matters in the sense that it increases the effectiveness of the emergency-aid program. Our findings show the interplay between governmental support programs, the digitalization levels of entrepreneurs, and the regional digital infrastructure. The study helps public policy to improve the impact of crisis-related policy instruments, ultimately increasing the resilience of small firms in times of crises.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{CaliendoGraeberKritikosetal.2022,
  author    = {Caliendo, Marco and Graeber, Daniel and Kritikos, Alexander and Seebauer, Johannes},
  title     = {Pandemic depression},
  series = {Entrepreneurship theory and practice},
  volume    = {47},
  journal   = {Entrepreneurship theory and practice},
  number    = {3},
  publisher = {SAGE Publishing},
  address   = {Thousand Oaks},
  issn      = {1042-2587},
  doi       = {10.1177/10422587221102106},
  pages     = {788 -- 830},
  year      = {2022},
  abstract  = {We investigate the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on self-employed people's mental health. Using representative longitudinal survey data from Germany, we reveal differential effects by gender: whereas self-employed women experienced a substantial deterioration in their mental health, self-employed men displayed no significant changes up to early 2021. Financial losses are important in explaining these differences. In addition, we find larger mental health responses among self-employed women who were directly affected by government-imposed restrictions and bore an increased childcare burden due to school and daycare closures. We also find that self-employed individuals who are more resilient coped better with the crisis.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{FritschKritikosSorgner2015,
  author    = {Fritsch, Michael and Kritikos, Alexander and Sorgner, Alina},
  title     = {Why did self-employment increase so strongly in Germany?},
  series = {Entrepreneurship and regional development},
  volume    = {27},
  journal   = {Entrepreneurship and regional development},
  number    = {5-6},
  publisher = {Routledge, Taylor \& Francis Group},
  address   = {Abingdon},
  issn      = {0898-5626},
  doi       = {10.1080/08985626.2015.1048310},
  pages     = {307 -- 333},
  year      = {2015},
  abstract  = {Germany experienced a unique rise in the level of self-employment in the first two decades following unification. Applying the nonlinear Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition technique, we find that the main factors driving these changes in the overall level of self-employment are demographic developments, the shift towards service sector employment and a larger share of population holding a tertiary degree. While these factors explain most of the development in self-employment with employees and the overall level of self-employment in West Germany, their explanatory power is much lower for the stronger increase in solo self-employment and in self-employment in former socialist East Germany.},
  language  = {en}
}