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Youth Entrepreneurship in Germany: Empirical Evidence on the How, the Why, the How Many, the Who and the When

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  • Rolf Sternberg

    (Institute of Economic and Cultural Geography, Leibniz University Hannover, Schneiderberg 50, 30167 Hannover, Germany)

  • David Breitenbach

    (PatentRenewal.com ApS, Nørre Voldgade 96, 1, 1358 Copenhagen, Denmark)

Abstract

Youth entrepreneurship is an increasingly prominent aspect of entrepreneurship support policies, but there is surprisingly little relevant research-based empirical evidence. This research gap is particularly noticeable when it comes to the personal and contextual factors that steer young people’s decision to start a business. Using statistically representative survey data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor for Germany, we apply logit regressions to determine the influence of 10 independent variables on the likelihood of starting a business. We distinguish between 18–24-year-olds and 25–64-year-olds as well as between founders and non-founders. Self-efficacy in entrepreneurial skills, fear of failure and gender are the strongest influencing variables for the person-related factors and knowledge of other founders for the contextual factors. For younger people, the formal level of education and the perception of local entrepreneurial opportunities do not play a role in the decision to start a business, whereas they are very important for older people. Our results suggest that start-up promotion policies should explicitly address the empirically proven factors of youth entrepreneurship instead of a ‘one size fits all’ policy for new businesses, regardless of the age of the founders.

Suggested Citation

  • Rolf Sternberg & David Breitenbach, 2023. "Youth Entrepreneurship in Germany: Empirical Evidence on the How, the Why, the How Many, the Who and the When," Economies, MDPI, vol. 11(6), pages 1-30, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jecomi:v:11:y:2023:i:6:p:161-:d:1166170
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