TY - JOUR A1 - Caliendo, Marco A1 - Kuenn, Steffen A1 - Weißenberger, Martin T1 - Personality traits and the evaluation of start-up subsidies JF - European economic review N2 - 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׳ 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. KW - Start-up subsidies KW - Evaluation KW - Self-employment KW - Personality KW - Treatment effects Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.euroecorev.2015.11.008 SN - 0014-2921 SN - 1873-572X VL - 86 SP - 87 EP - 108 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - 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 - TY - JOUR A1 - Caliendo, Marco A1 - Kuenn, Steffen T1 - Regional effect heterogeneity of start-up subsidies for the unemployed JF - Regional studies N2 - 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. KW - Start-up subsidies KW - Evaluation KW - Effect heterogeneity KW - Regional effects KW - Self-employment KW - Subventions de demarrage KW - Evaluation KW - Effet heterogene KW - Effets regionaux KW - Travail independant KW - Existenzgrundungszuschusse KW - Bewertung KW - Heterogenitat von Effekten KW - Regionale Auswirkungen KW - Selbststandigkeit KW - Subvenciones a proyectos empresariales KW - Evaluacion KW - Heterogeneidad del efecto KW - Efectos regionales KW - Empleo autonomo KW - C14 KW - J68 KW - L26 KW - R11 Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2013.851784 SN - 0034-3404 SN - 1360-0591 VL - 48 IS - 6 SP - 1108 EP - 1134 PB - Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group CY - Abingdon ER -