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Abstract
Fritsch M. and Wyrwich M. The long persistence of regional levels of entrepreneurship: Germany, 1925–2005, Regional Studies. This paper investigates the persistent levels of self-employment and new business formation in different time periods and under different framework conditions. The analysis shows that regional differences regarding the level of self-employment and new business formation tend to be persistent for periods as long as eighty years, despite abrupt and drastic changes in the political–economic environment. This pronounced persistence demonstrates the existence of regional entrepreneurship culture that tends to have long-lasting effects.
Fritsch M. and Wyrwich M. 长期存在的区域层级创业精神：德国，1925 年至 2005 年，区域研究。本文探讨在不同时程阶段、不同架构条件之下，自雇与新兴企业形成的续存程度。研究分析显示，自雇以及新兴企业形成程度的区域差异，倾向持续存在长达八年之久，儘管政治经济环境时有突发性与剧烈的改变。此一深厚的持续性，证明了区域创业精神文化的存在，该文化倾向拥有长期的影响。
Fritsch M. et Wyrwich M. La persistance de longue durée des niveaux régionaux de l'esprit d'entreprise: l'Allemagne de 1925 jusqu'à 2005, Regional Studies. Cet article examine les niveaux de travail indépendant et la création de nouvelles entreprises à des périodes différentes et dans des conditions-cadres différentes. L'analyse montre que les différences régionales pour ce qui est du niveau de travail indépendant et de la création de nouvelles entreprises ont tendance à persister pendant des périodes aussi longues que quatre-vingts années, en dépit des changements inattendus du milieu politico-économique. Cette persistance marquée démontre la présence d'une culture entrepreneuriale qui a tendance à avoir des effets à long terme.
Fritsch M. und Wyrwich M. Die Persistenz regionalen Unternehmertums: Deutschland, 1925–2005, Regional Studies. Wir analysieren die Persistenz von unternehmerischer Selbständigkeit und des regionalen Gründungsgeschehens in verschiedenen Zeiträumen und unter unterschiedlichen Rahmenbedingungen. Es zeigt sich, dass regionale Unterschiede im Niveau unternehmerischer Selbständigkeit und des Gründungsgeschehens Zeiträume von bis zu 80 Jahren überdauern, auch wenn es zu plötzlichen und tiefgreifenden Veränderungen des politisch-ökonomischen Umfeldes kommt. Diese ausgeprägte Persistenz belegt die Existenz einer regionalen Kultur unternehmerischer Selbständigkeit, die über lange Zeiträume fortwirkt.
Fritsch M. y Wyrwich M. La larga persistencia del empresariado regional: Alemania, 1925–2005, Regional Studies. En este artículo investigamos el nivel persistente del empleo autónomo y la formación de nuevas empresas en diferentes periodos de tiempo y bajo diferentes condiciones estructurales. El análisis muestra que, pese a los cambios bruscos y drásticos en el entorno político y económico, las diferencias regionales con respecto al nivel de empleo autónomo y la formación de nuevas empresas tienden a ser persistentes durante periodos de hasta ochenta años. Esta persistencia pronunciada demuestra la existencia de una cultura empresarial de ámbito regional que suele tener efectos de larga duración.
Acknowledgements
This paper is based on research conducted within the framework of the Collaborative Research Center ‘Social Developments in Post-Socialist Societies – Discontinuity, Tradition, Structural Formation’ at the universities of Halle and Jena, Germany. The authors are indebted to the German Research Foundation (DFG) for financial support. Special thanks are extended to Martin Andersson, Robert Gold, Sierdjan Koster and the anonymous referees for helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper.
Notes
1. Although formal and informal institutions are related, other factors may play a rather significant role. This is evidenced by the observation that the extent of an entrepreneurship culture can strongly vary across regions within a country that are characterized by the same framework of formal institutions (for example, Andersson, Citation2012; Beugelsdijk, Citation2007; Davidsson, Citation1995; Davidsson and Wiklund, Citation1997; Etzioni, Citation1987; Westlund and Bolton, Citation2003).
2. This is an implication of the highly significantly positive effect of the small business employment share on the regional level of start-ups (for example, Fritsch and Falck, Citation2007) because such a high share of employment in small businesses indicates the presence of relatively many firms and entrepreneurs.
3. ‘[I]n addition to economic circumstances, the local amount of entrepreneurial activity is itself an important variable in determining individual decisions whether to act upon a recognized opportunity. In other words, I argue that entrepreneurship creates a “culture” of itself that influences individual behavior in its favor’ (Minniti, Citation2005, p. 3).
4. Dubini (Citation1989) distinguishes between munificent and sparse entrepreneurial environments. A munificent entrepreneurial environment is characterized by a large number of entrepreneurial role models, an efficient infrastructure, well-established capital markets, and the availability of opportunities and incentives for starting entrepreneurial ventures. A sparse entrepreneurial environment lacks not only the values, culture and tradition of entrepreneurship, but also the necessary infrastructure, well-functioning capital markets and innovation activities that may generate entrepreneurial opportunities, as well as government incentives. Hence, incentives for starting firms in such an environment are rather low.
5. If available, alternative indicators for new business formation and self-employment from other sources tend to be highly correlated with the data used here.
6. There are actually seventy-four West German planning regions. For administrative reasons, the cities of Hamburg and Bremen are defined as planning regions even though they are not functional economic units. To avoid distortions, the official definition of planning regions was adjusted by merging these two cities with adjacent planning regions. Therefore, Hamburg was merged with the region of Schleswig-Holstein South and Hamburg-Umland South. Bremen was merged with Bremen-Umland. Thus, the number of regions in the sample was seventy-one.
7. Start-ups in agriculture were not considered in the analysis because self-employment in this sector must be regarded a special case and shaped by factors rather different from those relevant in other parts of the economy. Further, this sector is characterized by a high employment contribution of helping family members who are not captured in the Social Insurance Statistics.
8. The highest regional start-up rates (over twenty start-ups per 1000 workforces) are more than five times larger than the lowest start-up rates (about four start-ups per 1000 workforce).
9. According to a different database – the German Micro Census – that measures the number of founders instead of the number of start-ups and which also comprises new businesses without employees, the East German start-up rate reached the West German level in 2004 and has been slightly above the value for West Germany since 2005 (Fritsch et al., Citation2012). This clearly indicates a higher share of start-ups without any employee in East Germany, many of them probably founded out of necessity due to relatively high unemployment rates in this part of the country.
10. This procedure was also applied for the analyses of the second and third scenarios.
11. R&D employees over total employment. R&D employees are defined as those with tertiary degrees working as engineers or natural scientists (source: German Social Insurance Statistics).
12. The German federal states (Laender) are an important level of policy-making. Germany consists of sixteen federal states: West Germany comprises ten federal states and East Germany consists of six federal states (including Berlin). As mentioned above, the planning regions for the cities of Hamburg and Bremen, each representing a federal state, were merged with surrounding planning regions that belong to other federal states. Since these two newly created regions do not represent their own political units, they were used as a reference category when including dummy variables for federal states.
13. Population density (as well as alternative measures such as employment density or market size in terms of population) and the share of R&D personnel are highly correlated (r = 0.54). The correlation between population density and employment density is 0.98. The correlation between the number of population and population density is 0.68. Excluding the share of R&D personnel makes the effect of population density insignificant. This suggests that density as such does not have a significant effect.
14. Fritsch and Mueller (Citation2007) found a negative effect of the local unemployment rate. Restricting the period to the years analysed by Fritsch and Mueller makes the unemployment rate significantly negative in Model I and insignificant in Model II.
15. Running the model with the start-up rate in t – 1, t – 2 or t – 4 does not lead to any significant changes in the results. The same pattern emerges if the model is run without the control variables that are included in the models presented in .
16. The quantile regressions were restricted to the period 1984–1998 because including the years 1999–2005 leads to somewhat fuzzy results that are obviously caused by an abrupt increase of the recorded level of start-up activity between 1998 and 1999. This jump in the data is probably due to some post-1998 changes in the reporting system of the Social Insurance Statistics.
17. Unfortunately, the historical data do not contain information about the number of start-ups. Furthermore, there is only limited information on the planning region that comprises the federal state of Saarland since parts of this area did not belong to Germany in 1925. The information on the remaining districts is used. Excluding these areas (which equals omitting one observation per year) does not change the results.
18. The employment shares of three large economic sectors – construction, manufacturing and other industries – in 1925 were used to control for the economic structure of the regional economy. This will avoid the fact that the self-employment rate mainly reflects the industry structure in that year.
19. As mentioned in the fourth section, the positive effect for the regional unemployment rate found in the framework of Scenario I ( and ) is presumably shaped by programmes for promoting start-ups by unemployed people that have been introduced after 2002. If the years 2003–2005 are excluded, the coefficient for the unemployment rate is always negative.
20. This may be regarded as an indication that the attempts of the socialist GDR regime to battle entrepreneurship particularly in regions with high levels of self-employment has been of rather limited success.
21. The information on self-employment in 1989 was obtained from the GDR Statistical Office and adjusted to the actual definition of spatial units (for details, see Kawka, Citation2007). The self-employment rate in 1989 is the number of self-employed divided by the number of all employees. Unfortunately, the available data do not provide information about the economic sectors of the businesses.
22. Another factor that can contribute to persistence is path dependency. If new business formation has a positive effect on regional development, then high levels of growth may lead to high start-up rates in future periods making new business formation not only a source, but also a symptom of growth (Anyadike-Danes et al., Citation2011). However, given the severe external shocks that German regions have experienced in the period under inspection in this paper, particularly the destruction of the country in the Second World War, such an explanation can be hardly regarded as plausible for the German example that has been analysed herein.
