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  -