|
on Entrepreneurship |
| By: | Philippe d’Astous; Vyacheslav Mikhed; Sahil Raina; Barry Scholnick |
| Abstract: | Using wealth windfalls from lottery winnings and matched employer-employee tax files, we compare the effect of additional wealth on the entrepreneurial activity of older and younger individuals. We find that additional wealth leads older winners (aged 55 to 64) to reduce business ownership and growth (as measured by sales, revenue, and employees). In contrast, extra wealth increases younger winners’ (aged 21 to 54) business ownership, but it has no effect on their business growth. The increase in business activity of a young winner does not offset the negative growth for an older winner, which may hurt economic growth. |
| Keywords: | Wealth; Age; Entrepreneurship; Retirement |
| JEL: | G5 G51 J22 L26 |
| Date: | 2025–10–21 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedpwp:101992 |
| By: | Colombo, Massimo G.; Füner, Lena; Guerini, Massimiliano; Hottenrott, Hanna; Souza, Daniel |
| Abstract: | This paper replicates and extends the framework of Guzman and Stern (2020) to examine the evolution of entrepreneurial activity in Europe, focusing on France, Germany, and the United Kingdom between 2009 and 2023. Using harmonized national business registry data, we construct measures of both the quantity and quality of entrepreneurship across regions. In particular, we adapt the Entrepreneurial Quality Index (EQI), the Regional Entrepreneurship Cohort Potential Index (RECPI), and the Regional Entrepreneurial Acceleration Index (REAI) to capture the number of new ventures, their ex-ante growth potential, and the extent to which ecosystems translate this potential into realized outcomes. Our findings support the generalizability of this framework in the European context while revealing substantial heterogeneity across countries and regions. Major metropolitan centers such as Paris, London, and Munich combine high rates of entry with high entrepreneurial quality, but smaller knowledge- and research-intensive regions - including Cambridge, Oxford, Bonn, and Heidelberg - also emerge as important hubs. With respect to ecosystem performance, France and the UK initially exceeded expectations but later experienced steady declines, whereas Germany maintained relatively stable performance, with notable overperformance between 2012 and 2016. Moreover, we find a stronger positive correlation between entrepreneurial quantity and quality in Europe, suggesting that ecosystems capable of generating more start-ups are also more likely to produce high-quality firms. This study provides important insights for the comparative analysis of entrepreneurial ecosystems and builds a foundation for designing policies aimed at fostering high-quality, innovation-driven entrepreneurship in Europe. |
| Keywords: | Entrepreneurial Quality, Entrepreneurial Ecosystem, High-Growth Firms, Regional Innovation |
| JEL: | G24 G32 L25 L26 M13 R12 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:330316 |
| By: | Éva Komlósi (University of Pécs); Hanga Bilicz (University of Pécs); Mónika Tiszberger (University of Pécs); Erkko Autio (Imperial College London); Donghyun Park (Asian Development Bank); Shu Tian (Asian Development Bank) |
| Abstract: | The Female Entrepreneurship Index (FEI) for 2024 aims to pinpoint the elements that facilitate the success of promising high-potential female entrepreneurs—those who manage and possess ventures characterized by innovation, market growth, and a focus on exports. Ambitious female entrepreneurs, through their commercial pursuits, not only enhance their personal financial standing but also make significant contributions to their society’s economic and social structure. The FEI’s methodical framework allows for international comparisons and evaluations of genderspecific circumstances that typically influence the growth of productive female entrepreneurship. As an analytical tool for comprehensively recognizing and examining the environment that is conducive to the advancement of productive businesses led by women, the FEI goes beyond merely tallying the number of female entrepreneurs. Instead, it concentrates on highlighting an economy’s assets and limitations in cultivating an atmosphere or potential that could nurture the development of exceptional female-driven enterprises. |
| Keywords: | female entrepreneurship;innovation-driven enterprises;export-oriented ventures;gender-specific business environment;comparative entrepreneurial analysis |
| JEL: | L26 J16 O57 |
| Date: | 2025–10–27 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:adbewp:021698 |
| By: | Dotti, Nicola Francesco (Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, European Commission); Al-Ajlani, Haya (Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, European Commission); Benoit, Florence (Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, European Commission); Cavicchi, Bianca (Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, European Commission); Di Girolamo, Valentina (Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, European Commission); Kuenzel, Robert (Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, European Commission); Ravet, Julien (Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, European Commission) |
| Abstract: | This literature review provides short summaries of recent scientific articles discussing the challenges of public policies for startups, in line with the newly established Task Force for Startups and Scaleups. This publication is developed by the Team on ‘Economics of Research and Innovation’ of the Chief Economist Unit in the European Commission’s Directorate General for Research and Innovation. For this edition, the contributors are Nicola Francesco Dotti (review coordinator), Haya Al-Ajlani, Florence Benoit, Bianca Cavicchi, Valentina Di Girolamo, Robert Kuenzel, and Julien Ravet. |
| Keywords: | startups, public policies, entrepreneurship, innovation, economic growth |
| JEL: | L26 O30 O38 O52 |
| Date: | 2025–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eug:wpaper:ki-01-25-095-en-n |
| By: | Wang, Gaowang; Zou, Heng-fu |
| Abstract: | In this article, we develop a growth theory by integrating the Weber-Schumpeterian spirit of capitalism into Romer's (1990) model of endogenous technological change. The spirit of capitalism influences innovation and long-run growth through capital accumulation and the reallocation of human capital, mediated by a price mechanism. It also helps prevent economic stagnation arising from a limited stock of human capital. Explicit solutions illustrate the qualitative effects of the spirit of capitalism on growth. Using calibrated parameters based on U.S. data, we find this effect is quantitatively significant, accounting for more than half of U.S. long-run growth. |
| Keywords: | Weber's Spirit of Capitalism; Schumpeter's entrepreneurial psychology; Endogenous Growth; Economic Stagnation; Heterogeneous Ability |
| JEL: | E1 O3 O4 |
| Date: | 2025–10–18 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:126518 |
| By: | Block, Jörn (University of Trier); Gnad, Miriam (University of Trier); Kritikos, Alexander S. (DIW Berlin); Stiel, Caroline (DIW Berlin) |
| Abstract: | Despite substantial research on job satisfaction in self-employment, we know little about the consequences for the venture when job satisfaction declines after an external shock. Taking the pandemic as an example of an external shock and drawing on 7, 000 self-employed in Germany, we investigate how declines in job satisfaction are related to their investment decisions. Having separated job satisfaction into its financial and non-financial aspects, we build in our analysis on two perspectives to predict how reductions in financial and non-financial job satisfaction relate to investments in venture development. Our results show that decreasing financial job satisfaction is positively related to time investments, providing support for the performance feedback perspective. Negative performance, in terms of reduced financial job satisfaction, induces higher search efforts to improve the business situation. Moreover, we observe that reductions in non-financial job satisfaction are negatively associated with both time and monetary investments. This supports the broadening-and-build perspective in that negative experiences narrow the thought-action repertoire, thus hindering resource deployment. |
| Keywords: | broadening-and-build perspective, performance feedback perspective, self-employment and entrepreneurship, investment decisions, job satisfaction, behavioral economics, economic psychology, Germany |
| JEL: | L26 J28 G11 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18204 |
| By: | Bassirou Gueye |
| Abstract: | The COVID-19 pandemic has had an unprecedented impact on the Canadian economy. This impact was uneven across different workers and businesses. However, there is little information available on how businesses were affected by and survived through the pandemic according to the characteristics of their owners, especially those owned by certain groups such as women and immigrants. These businesses tend to be more financially constrained, operating more in service sectors that require in-person contacts, and hence more vulnerable to the crisis. This article uses a linkage of the monthly business openings and closures with the Canadian Employer-Employee Dynamics Database and the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS) to study the survival rate and employment growth of businesses by gender, and immigrant status of owners. Specifically, the goal of this analysis is to determine the survival, closure and growth rates of women-owned (WOBs) and immigrant-owned (IOBs) businesses and compare them with men-owned (MOBs) and Canadian-owned (COBs) businesses, respectively. The results suggest that CEWS take-up rates were similar between MOBs and WOBs at the aggregate level but there were some gender differences across sectors. In addition, at the business sector level, WOBs and MOBs showed comparable survival rates. However, although the gap in survival rates between MOBs and WOBs decreased compared to the pre-pandemic period, WOBs were proportionally less likely to survive than MOBs in some sectors. Furthermore, the difference in survival rates between MOBs and WOBs were generally higher among businesses that did not receive the CEWS. Finally, WOBs that did not use the CEWS were more likely to close during the first year of the pandemic than MOBs. Compared to COBs, IOBs were more commonly found in service sectors and were less inclined to use the CEWS across most sectors. Immigrant-owned businesses were also generally smaller, with over three-quarters of them employing fewer than five employees. Regardless of CEWS usage, IOBs had lower survival rates than COBs across most sectors, especially among smaller businesses. However, the survival rate of IOBs was higher than that of COBs among businesses that did not use the CEWS in the accommodation and food services sector. Among businesses that did not use the CEWS, IOBs were more prone to closure in 2020 or 2022 and less likely to expand their workforce. |
| Keywords: | firm performance, size, diversification, scope, entrepreneurship, COVID-19 |
| JEL: | J23 M21 |
| Date: | 2024–05–22 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:stc:stcp8e:202400500006e |
| By: | Amélie Lafrance-Cooke; Alex McDougall |
| Abstract: | The COVID-19 pandemic had a substantial impact on business dynamics, leading to the temporary or permanent closure of many businesses. By contrast, corporate insolvency proposals and bankruptcies under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act declined in 2020. Using a newly developed linked database, this paper presents trends in exits, insolvency proposals and bankruptcies across business and financial characteristics among corporations from 2004 to 2020. Contrasting differences are found between exits and bankruptcies across firm sizes, industries, and provinces and territories. Small firms are more likely to exit than larger firms, while bankruptcy rates are lower among small firms compared with large firms. There are important differences across industries, with businesses in manufacturing having some of the lowest exit rates but relatively high bankruptcy rates. At the provincial and territorial levels, there is little variation in exit rates, but Quebec stands out for having low exit rates and the highest bankruptcy rates. In terms of financial characteristics, bankrupt businesses tend to have low levels of labour productivity, profitability and liquidity, and high levels of leverage. The results are similar for businesses that exit but far less pronounced, likely indicative of exits occurring for reasons other than business failure or financial distress. The results also suggest that bankrupt businesses became more vulnerable over time in terms of their financial ratios the year preceding bankruptcy. |
| Keywords: | business dynamics, business failure |
| JEL: | J23 M21 |
| Date: | 2023–10–25 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:stc:stcp8e:202301000005e |
| By: | Amélie Lafrance-Cooke; Danny Leung |
| Abstract: | Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, it was shown that there were fewer new firms in 2020 and that these new firms were smaller than previous entrants. It would be problematic if the situation continued into 2021 and 2022 because new firms are seen as important conduits of innovation and economic renewal. This is particularly pertinent in the current context of weak productivity growth. This article finds that despite starting smaller in employment size and being fewer in number, the entrants in 2020 carried less debt, had more liquidity, were more profitable and were more productive in their year of entry than previous entry cohorts. In addition, perhaps as a result of these characteristics, the 2020 entry cohort, who could not qualify for COVID-19 support programs, had higher survival rates in the first two years of their existence compared with previous cohorts in the same point in their lifecycle and were able to catch up in average employment size in their second year after entry. Furthermore, the rate of entry and the average size of entrants in 2021 and 2022 have mostly recovered to their pre-pandemic levels. The characteristics of the 2021 entrants are also closer to those of 2020 entrants than to those of entrants in the pre-pandemic years. This suggests that weak firm entry or weak entrants are likely not the source of the current lack of productivity growth in the Canadian economy. However, more conclusive evidence will be available when more recent microdata become available. |
| Keywords: | COVID-19, new businesses, new firms, debt, liquidity, economic activity |
| JEL: | J23 M21 |
| Date: | 2024–06–26 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:stc:stcp8e:202400600003e |
| By: | Max Stick; Christoph Schimmele; Maciej Karpinski; Amélie Arsenault |
| Abstract: | This study used data from the 2020 General Social Survey to examine the social connectedness of immigrant women to Canadian society. The size and composition of immigrant women’s personal networks varied by their sociodemographic, immigrant-specific and residential characteristics, and by population group. Most subgroups of immigrant women had smaller social networks than their Canadian-born counterparts, although for some, the difference was small. Most of the differences between immigrants and Canadian-born women were related to weak ties, and for most subgroups there were no or fewer differences in the number of strong ties that composed their networks. Most subgroups of immigrant women had more inter-ethnic friends than Canadian-born women, even though their networks were mostly homogenous in ethnic composition. |
| Keywords: | Immigrant women, social networks, social capital, immigrant integration |
| JEL: | J23 M21 |
| Date: | 2024–04–24 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:stc:stcp8e:202400400005e |
| By: | Gianmarco Daniele; Marco De Simoni; Domenico J. Marchetti; Giovanna Marcolongo; Paolo Pinotti |
| Abstract: | We show that credit constraints significantly increase the risk that firms are infiltrated by organized crime, defined as the covert involvement of criminal organizations in corporate decision-making. Using confidential data on criminal investigations, credit ratings, and loan histories for the universe of Italian firms, we find that a downgrade to substandard credit status reduces credit availability by 30% over five years and increases the probability of infiltration by 5%, relative to comparable firms. A local randomization design comparing firms just above and below the downgrade threshold confirms this result. The effect is pervasive across sectors and regions, but particularly strong in real estate, where the probability of infiltration rises by 10% following a downgrade. Infiltrated firms also display higher survival rates than other downgraded firms, despite similar declines in employment and revenues. These findings suggest that organized crime can serve as a financial backstop – sustaining non-viable businesses and potentially redirecting their strategies to serve criminal interests. |
| Keywords: | organized crime, firms, bank credit |
| JEL: | G32 K42 L25 O17 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12219 |
| By: | Huju Liu; Hassan Faryaar |
| Abstract: | Technology adoption is essential for improving the growth, productivity and competitiveness of businesses. Previous research suggests that women-owned businesses may be less likely to adopt technologies because they are usually smaller, face more financial constraints, are less likely to access technology knowledge or training, and have different risk-taking preferences. This paper linked two cycles (2017 and 2019) of the Survey of Innovation and Business Strategy with the Canadian Employer-Employee Dynamics Database to study the use of advanced and emerging technologies by women- and men-owned businesses in Canada. The study found some evidence of differences in the use of certain technologies by women-owned businesses, compared with men-owned businesses. Women-owned businesses (12.3%) were less likely to use emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, than men-owned businesses (16.5%). However, there was no significant difference in the use of advanced technologies. A Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition showed that the difference in characteristics between women- and men-owned businesses explained about 31% of the overall difference in using emerging technologies. Certain characteristics such as the share of women employees, the average age of employees, business age and profitability played a role in explaining the overall differences. |
| Keywords: | technology adoption, women-owned businesses, emerging technologies, advanced technologies |
| JEL: | J23 M21 |
| Date: | 2024–08–28 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:stc:stcp8e:202400800003e |
| By: | Manyane Kpatoumbi Kankpe (Université Jean Monnet, Université Lyon 2, emlyon, GATE, CNRS, 42100, Saint Etienne) |
| Abstract: | Abstract: This study examines the impact of design activities on innovation and identifies the main determinants influencing firms’ investment in design. We use a cross-sectional database built from three sources: the French Community Innovation Survey (CIS) 2018, the Annual Declaration of Social Data (DADS), and the structural business statistics (FARE) for the period 2015–2017. By adopting an instrumental variable (IV) approach that accounts for the endogeneity of design, our results provide clear evidence that integrating design significantly increases the likelihood of innovation. A doubling of the number of designers within a firm more than doubles the probability of innovating in product or process. This impact of design is greater than that of R&D or marketing, indicating its central role in the innovation process. However, failing to consider the endogeneity of design leads to an underestimation of its true effect. Similarly, our results confirm the endogeneity of R&D, as demonstrated by Crépon et al. (1998), and ignoring this dimension also results in an underestimation of its impact on innovation. Regarding the determinants of design, we find that the concentration of designers within a sector and a region, public financial support, and export intensity foster its adoption. By introducing a time lag between innovation activities and their outcomes, certain limitations of cross-sectional studies—particularly simultaneity bias—are overcome, despite the use of the IV approach. |
| Keywords: | Design, Innovation, R&D, Marketing, Endogeneity |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gat:wpaper:2521 |
| By: | de Brauw, Alan; Hirvonen, Kalle |
| Abstract: | Micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) play an important role in the food environment in many low- and middle-income countries. But there is little systematic knowledge about the opportunities they have and constraints they face in trying to grow their businesses. To contribute to building this knowledge base, we draw upon linked household–enterprise surveys collected in two districts in Ethiopia in 2023. To learn about the constraints faced by these enterprises, we examine differences in organizational characteristics and business practices by outlet type, location, and manager gender and education among MSMEs that sell food. The results suggest that while there are clear availability constraints for specific types of foods, there are some strategies that could help MSMEs that retail healthy foods increase sales. If policymakers or others are interested in supporting sales through the food environment, interventions such as business training, service access, and capacity building on nutrition would best fit their needs. |
| Keywords: | capacity development; enterprises; food environment; healthy diets; households; nutrition; Ethiopia; Africa; Eastern Africa; Sub-Saharan Africa |
| Date: | 2025–10–20 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:177229 |