IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/
MyIDEAS: Log in (now much improved!) to save this paper

How Long Does it Take to Become an Entrepreneurial Society - The Case of German Convergence in Self-Employment

Author Info

  • Yvonne Schindele

    ()

    (School of Economics and Business Administration, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena)

Abstract

Since the beginning of the transformation of East Germany from a socialist planned economy to a market economy, there has been an ambitious political goal of fostering entrepreneurial activity in that part of the country. One of the most-hoped for results of this undertaking is the anticipated contribution of small and new firms to solving the economic, social, and political problems of East Germany, thereby narrowing the gap between East and West Germany. This paper uses panel data from 1992 to 2005 on 97 German regions to analyze recent convergence in self-employment rates. An astonishing catching-up process is observed for East German regions during the period under study. However, the general convergence between East and West Germany observed during the first years after reunification has not been maintained. In short, some East German regions have achieved convergence with West German self-employment rates and some have not.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. 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.

File URL: http://pubdb.wiwi.uni-jena.de/pdf/wp_2010_015.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Paper provided by Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena in its series Jena Economic Research Papers with number 2010-015.

as
in new window

Length:
Date of creation: 17 Mar 2010
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2010-015
Contact details of provider: Postal:
Carl-Zeiss-Strasse 3, 07743 JENA

Phone: +049 3641/ 9 43000
Fax: +049 3641/ 9 43000
Web page: http://www.jenecon.de

More information through EDIRC

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; regional convergence; self-employment; regional devel- opment; transition; Germany;

Find related papers by JEL classification:

  • L26 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Entrepreneurship
  • M13 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - New Firms; Startups
  • O1 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development
  • O18 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure
  • O47 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence
  • R11 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References listed on IDEAS
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.:

as in new window
  1. Bernhard Herz & Werner Roger, 1995. "Economic growth and convergence in Germany," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 131(1), pages 132-143, March.
  2. Merkl, Christian & Snower, Dennis J., 2008. "Escaping the unemployment trap: The case of East Germany," Kiel Working Papers 1309 [rev.], Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW).
  3. David G. Blanchflower, 2000. "Self-Employment in OECD Countries," NBER Working Papers 7486, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  4. Hans-Werner Sinn, 2000. "Germany's Economic Unification: An Assessment after Ten Years," NBER Working Papers 7586, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  5. Robert J. Barro & Xavier Sala-i-Martin, 1991. "Convergence across States and Regions," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 22(1), pages 107-182.
  6. Nickell, Stephen J, 1981. "Biases in Dynamic Models with Fixed Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(6), pages 1417-26, November.
  7. Nazrul Islam, 1995. "Growth Empirics: A Panel Data Approach," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 110(4), pages 1127-1170.
  8. Robert J. Barro, 1997. "Getting It Right: Markets and Choices in a Free Society," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262522268, December.
  9. Galor, Oded, 1996. "Convergence? Inferences from Theoretical Models," CEPR Discussion Papers 1350, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  10. Barro, Robert J & Sala-i-Martin, Xavier, 1992. "Convergence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(2), pages 223-51, April.
  11. Michael Fritsch, 2004. "Entrepreneurship, Entry and Performance of New Businesses Compared in two Growth Regimes: East and West Germany," Papers on Entrepreneurship, Growth and Public Policy 2004-41, Max Planck Institute of Economics, Entrepreneurship, Growth and Public Policy Group.
  12. Ray Barrell & Dirk Willem te Velde, 2000. "Catching-up of East German Labour Productivity in the 1990s," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 1(3), pages 271-297, 08.
  13. Manuel Arellano & Stephen Bond, 1991. "Some Tests of Specification for Panel Data: Monte Carlo Evidence and an Application to Employment Equations," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 58(2), pages 277-297.
  14. Ben-David, Dan, 1994. "Convergence Clubs and Diverging Economies," CEPR Discussion Papers 922, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  15. Michael Funke & Holge Strulik, 1999. "Growth and Convergence in a Two-Region Model of Unified Germany," CESifo Working Paper Series 206, CESifo Group Munich.
  16. John B. Hall & Udo Ludwig, 2006. "Economic convergence across German regions in light of empirical findings," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 30(6), pages 941-953, November.
  17. Robert J. Barro & Xavier Sala-i-Martin, 1990. "Economic Growth and Convergence across The United States," NBER Working Papers 3419, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  18. Steiner, Viktor & Wagner, Kersten, 1997. "East West German wage convergence - How far have we got?," ZEW Discussion Papers 97-25, ZEW - Zentrum für Europäische Wirtschaftsforschung / Center for European Economic Research.
  19. N. Gregory Mankiw & David Romer & David N. Weil, 1992. "A Contribution to the Empirics of Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 107(2), pages 407-437.
  20. David Audretsch & Michael Fritsch, 2002. "Growth Regimes over Time and Space," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(2), pages 113-124.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.

as in new window


Cited by:

  1. Yvonne Schindele & Michael Fritsch & Florian Noseleit, 2011. "Micro-level Evidence on the Survival of German Manufacturing Industries - A Multidimensional Analysis (refereed paper)," ERSA conference papers ersa10p549, European Regional Science Association.
  2. Michael Wyrwich, 2014. "Ready, set, go! Why are some regions entrepreneurial jump starters?," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 53(2), pages 487-513, September.
  3. Michael Wyrwich, 2011. "New business formation and regional growth across regions with distinct initial industry structures," ERSA conference papers ersa10p656, European Regional Science Association.

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Access and download statistics

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2010-015. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Markus Pasche)

If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis using RePEc data.