Persistence in Entrepreneurship and its Implications for the European Entrepreneurial Promotion Policy

Abstract

By considering entrepreneurs who hire employees and own-account workers as related but distinct groups within self-employment, this work analyzes the roles of different factors in self-employment survival in Europe from a new perspective: contrasting the determinants of own-account self-employment survival with those affecting employers’ survival in the EU-15. Our results confirm the presence of persistence in entrepreneurship. However, we also obtain a strong negative effect on survival of entering self-employment from unemployment. Hence, policymakers should balance these mixed results to evaluate the medium- and long-term suitability of the existing entrepreneurial promotion policy across European regions.

Keywords: entrepreneurship, own-account workers, employers, persistence, entrepreneurial promotion

JEL Classification: J18, J24, J38, J64