Stefan Bauernschuster () (University of Jena) Oliver Falck (Ifo Institute for Economic Research) Stephan Heblich (Max Planck Institute of Economics, Jena)
Additional information is available for the following
registered author(s):
This paper tests the importance of social contacts on entrepreneurship. To measure differences in the interconnectedness of social contacts, we compare rural and agglomerated areas. A smaller community size in rural areas generates greater network closure. Agents' neighborhoods are more likely to overlap, which intensifies social contacts and thus facilitates resource mobilization. Analyzing the impact of social contacts across regions, we find that greater network closure increases the likelihood of being an entrepreneur by 1.9 to 14.2 percentage points, depending on the number of underlying social contacts. These results remain robust after applying matching techniques and concentrating on young entrepreneurs.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena, Max-Planck-Institute of Economics, Thueringer Universitaets- und Landesbibliothek in its series Jena Economic Research Papers in Economics with number
2008-079.
Find related papers by JEL classification: J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Social Norms and Social Capital; Social Networks Economic Anthropology
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)