TY - JOUR A1 - Sorgner, Alina A1 - Fritsch, Michael A1 - Kritikos, Alexander T1 - Do entrepreneurs really earn less? JF - Small business economics : an international journal N2 - Based on large representative German household survey data, we compare incomes of the self-employed with those of paid employees. We find that the entrepreneurial income gap is largest for those holding a tertiary degree, but in two directions: positive for employers (self-employed with further employees) and negative for solo entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs holding a tertiary degree also face the greatest income variation. However, some solo self-employed earn more than their employed counterparts, in particular those with a university entrance degree as the highest level of education. KW - Income KW - Entrepreneurship KW - Self-employment KW - Germany Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-017-9874-6 SN - 0921-898X SN - 1573-0913 VL - 49 SP - 251 EP - 272 PB - Springer CY - Dordrecht ER - 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 - 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 - 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 -