Applied Economics Quarterly 

Abstract: Are Young and Small Firms Hothouses for Nascent Entrepreneurs? Evidence from German Micro Data Using a large recent representative sample of the German population this paper contributes to the entrepreneurship literature by empirically testing the hypothesis that young and small firms are hothouses for nascent entrepreneurs. The empirical estimation takes the rare events nature of becoming a nascent entrepreneur and the regional stratification of the sample into account. Controlling for various individual characteristics and attitudes (sex, age, risk aversion, presence of a role model in the family, and the width of professional background) we illustrate both the statistical significance and the economic importance for entrepreneurship of work experience in a firm that is both young and small. JEL Classification: J23, R12

Abstract: We use data from the German Socio-Economic Panel to investigate how individual happiness is affected by unemployment. Unemployment has a large and negative effect even after controlling for individual specific fixed effects. Nonparticipation, in contrast, is much less harmful to happiness. Further, we decompose the total well-being costs of unemployment and find that well above three quarters are non-pecuniary, and below one quarter pecuniary. One implication is that income support programs for the unemployed do very little at mitigating the adverse effects of unemployment, and such transfers are unlikely to generate unemployment.

Abstract: Using a large recent representative sample of the German population this paper contributes to the entrepreneurship literature by empirically testing the hypothesis that young and small firms are hothouses for nascent entrepreneurs. The empirical estimation takes the rare events nature of becoming a nascent entrepreneur and the regional stratification of the sample into account. Controlling for various individual characteristics and attitudes (sex, age, risk aversion, presence of a role model in the family, and the width of professional background) we illustrate both the statistical significance and the economic importance for entrepreneurship of work experience in a firm that is both young and small.

Abstract: We investigate how the wage distribution differs among small and large establishments in four European countries. Findings show that within-establishment wage dispersion rises with size because large employers have a more diverse workforce. They also suggest that screening and monitoring costs imply a lower sensitivity of wages to ability in larger establishments. Smaller establishments are found to rely more on incentive-based pay mechanisms, particularly in countries with a low trade union coverage rate. Further results indicate that between-establishment wage dispersion decreases with employer size because smaller establishments are technologically more diversified and hence exhibit greater diversity in average workforce skills.