The Long Persistence of Regional Entrepreneurship Culture: Germany 1925-2005

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may AbstractWe investigate the persistence of levels of self-employment and new business formation in different time periods and under different framework conditions. The analysis shows that high levels of regional self-employment and new business formation tend to be persistent for periods as long as 80 years and that such an entrepreneurial culture can even survive abrupt and drastic changes in the politic-economic environment. We thus conclude that regional entrepreneurship cultures do exist and that they have long-lasting effects.

Methods of analyzing the relationship between new business formation and regional development

“…Indeed, empirical research shows that including such time lags is very important and identifies a significant effect of new business formation on regional growth for periods of up to 10 years (for an overview, see Fritsch, 2013). Including longer time lags, however, runs up against the problem that regional levels of startup activity tend to be persistent over time (Andersson and Koster, 2011;Fritsch and Wyrwich, 2012) with the consequence that start-up rates for successive years are highly correlated. Hence, the coefficients for lagged start-up indicators may not reflect the "true" lag structure of the effects.…”

“…An empirical analysis of such long-run effects requires information about the regional level of entrepreneurship over longer periods of time. This sort of study is rarely undertaken, partly because such data is not often available (but see Wyrwich, 2012, for such an analysis).…”

New Firm Formation and Sustainable Regional Economic Development Relevance, Empirical Evidence, Policies

“…• the regional "culture" of entrepreneurship (Glaeser, Kerr and Kerr, 2012;Fritsch and Wyrwich, 2014;Obschonka, et al, 2013).…”

“…At least in some high income countries the regional levels of new business formation tend to be rather persistent over time (Andersson and Koster, 2011;Fotopoulos, 2013;Fritsch and Wyrwich, 2014) so that the new firm formation league table exhibits little or no variation over long periods of time. As a consequence, the positive effects of having a well-developed 'culture' of entrepreneurship in a region may be rather long-lasting.…”

Ready, set, go! Why are some regions entrepreneurial jump starters?

“…The persistence and resilience of regional differences of entrepreneurial culture in the face of severe changes in the formal institutional framework is demonstrated by Wyrwich (2012), who finds that remnants of the pre-socialist regional entrepreneurial culture in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) influence start-up activity positively after another disruptive shock event-transition to a market economy. The enduring effect of such an informal institution despite radical changes in the formal "rules of the game" is also indicated by van Stel and Cieslik's (2012) analysis of entrepreneurship in Eastern Europe.…”