Entrepreneurship Research Group Publications

Economic Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Entrepreneurship and Small Businesses

The existential threat to small businesses, based on their crucial role in the economy, is behind the plethora of scholarly studies in 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Examining the 14 contributions of the special issue on the "Economic Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Entrepreneurship and Small Businesses," the paper comprises four parts: a systematic review of the literature on the ...

The Productivity Puzzle in Business Services

In Germany, the productivity of professional services, a sector dominated by micro and small firms, declined by 40 percent between 1995 and 2014. This productivity decline also holds true for professional services in other European countries. Using a German firm-level dataset of 700,000 observations between 2003 and 2017, we analyze this largely uncovered phenomenon among professional services, the ...

The Productivity Puzzle in Business Services

In Germany, the productivity of professional services, a sector dominated by micro and small firms, declined by 40 percent between 1995 and 2014. This productivity decline also holds true for professional services in other European countries. Using a German firm-level dataset of 700,000 observations between 2003 and 2017, we analyze this largely uncovered phenomenon among professional services, the ...

COVID-19: a Crisis of the Female Self-Employed

We investigate how the economic consequences of the pandemic, and of the governmentmandated measures to contain its spread, affect the self-employed – particularly women – in Germany. For our analysis, we use representative, real-time survey data in which respondents were asked about their situation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our findings indicate that among the self-employed, who generally face ...

FuE-intensive Industrien und wissensintensive Dienstleistungen im internationalen Vergleich

COVID-19: a Crisis of the Female Self-Employed

We investigate how the economic consequences of the pandemic, and of the governmentmandated measures to contain its spread, affect the self-employed – particularly women – in Germany. For our analysis, we use representative, real-time survey data in which respondents were asked about their situation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our findings indicate that among the self-employed, who generally face ...

What Makes an Employer?

As the policy debate on entrepreneurship increasingly centers on firm growth in terms of job creation, it is important to better understand which variables influence the first hiring decision and which ones influence the subsequent survival as an employer. Using the German Socioeconomic Panel (SOEP), we analyze what role individual characteristics of entrepreneurs play in sustainable job creation. ...

FuE-intensive Industrien und wissensintensive Dienstleistungen im internationalen Vergleich

Frontiers und Laggards: Die Produktivitätsentwicklung deutscher Unternehmen

Das Wachstum der Produktivität in allen entwickelten Volkswirtschaften verlangsamt sich seit geraumer Zeit. Zugleich gibt es nach Analysen der OECD jedoch das Phänomen, dass es innerhalb der gewerblichen Wirtschaft eine kleine Gruppe hochproduktiver Unternehmen gibt, die weiterhin überdurchschnittliche Produktivitätszuwächse verzeichnen. In der öffentlichen Debatte und in Teilen des wissenschaftlichen ...

Produktivitätsentwicklung in Deutschland: Regionale und sektorale Heterogenität

In Deutschland bestehen gro.e regionale Unterschiede in der wirtschaftlichen Leistungsfahigkeit. Diese Unterschiede werden zwar durch eine Reihe von Umverteilungsma.nahmen reduziert, bestimmen aber wesentlich das Wohlstandspotential in den verschiedenen Regionen Deutschlands. Zentraler Indikator der wirtschaftlichen Leistungsfahigkeit ist die Produktivitat. Die vorliegende Untersuchung weist in der ...