TY  - JOUR
A1  - Fritsch, Michael
A1  - Kritikos, Alexander
A1  - Sorgner, Alina
T1  - Why did self-employment increase so strongly in Germany?
JF  - Entrepreneurship and regional development
N2  - 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.
KW  - self-employment
KW  - nonlinear Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition technique
KW  - entrepreneurship
KW  - Germany
KW  - L26
KW  - D22
Y1  - 2015
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1080/08985626.2015.1048310
SN  - 0898-5626
SN  - 1464-5114
VL  - 27
IS  - 5-6
SP  - 307
EP  - 333
PB  - Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group
CY  - Abingdon
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Fritsch, Michael
A1  - Kritikos, Alexander
A1  - Pijnenburg, Katharina
T1  - Business cycles, unemployment and entrepreneurial entry-evidence from Germany
JF  - International entrepreneurship and management journal
N2  - We investigate whether people are more willing to become self-employed during boom periods or during recessions and to what extent business cycles and unemployment levels influence entries into entrepreneurship. Our analysis for Germany reveals that there is a positive relationship between unemployment rates and start-up activities. Moreover, new business formation is higher during recessions than in boom periods, implying that it is counter-cyclical. When disentangling periods of low and high unemployment we find that the effect of unemployment on new business formation is only statistically significant if the level of unemployment is below the trend, indicating a "low unemployment retain effect".
KW  - Self-employment
KW  - Business cycle
KW  - Unemployment
KW  - Start-up
Y1  - 2015
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11365-014-0326-3
SN  - 1554-7191
SN  - 1555-1938
VL  - 11
IS  - 2
SP  - 267
EP  - 286
PB  - Springer
CY  - New York
ER  -