TY  - JOUR
A1  - Caliendo, Marco
A1  - Hogenacker, Jens
A1  - Kuenn, Steffen
A1  - Wiessner, Frank
T1  - Subsidized start-ups out of unemployment: a comparison to regular business start-ups
JF  - Small business economics : an international journal
N2  - 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.
KW  - Entrepreneurship
KW  - Start-up subsidies
KW  - Evaluation
KW  - Deadweight effects
KW  - Innovation
Y1  - 2015
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-015-9646-0
SN  - 0921-898X
SN  - 1573-0913
VL  - 45
IS  - 1
SP  - 165
EP  - 190
PB  - Springer
CY  - Dordrecht
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Caliendo, Marco
A1  - Künn, Steffen
T1  - Getting back into the labor market: the effects of start-up subsidies for unemployed females
JF  - Journal of population economics
N2  - Low female labor market participation is a problem many developed countries have to face. Beside activating inactive women, one possible solution is to support the re-integration of unemployed women. Due to female-specific labor market constraints (preferences for flexible working hours, discrimination), this is a difficult task, and the question arises whether active labor market policies (ALMP) are an appropriate tool to help. It has been shown that the effectiveness of traditional (ALMP) programs-which focus on the integration in dependent (potentially inflexible) employment-is positive but limited. At the same time, recent evidence for Austria shows that these programs reduce fertility which might be judged unfavorable from a societal perspective. Promoting self-employment among unemployed women might therefore be a promising alternative. Starting their own business might give women more independence and flexibility to reconcile work and family and increase labor market participation. Based on long-term informative data, we find that start-up programs persistently integrate former unemployed women into the labor market, and the impact on fertility is less detrimental than for traditional ALMP programs.
KW  - Start-up subsidies
KW  - Evaluation
KW  - Long-term effects
KW  - Female labor-force participation
KW  - Fertility
Y1  - 2015
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1007/s00148-015-0540-5
SN  - 0933-1433
SN  - 1432-1475
VL  - 28
IS  - 4
SP  - 1005
EP  - 1043
PB  - Springer
CY  - New York
ER  -