Arbeitspapier

Occupational choice and social contacts across regions

This paper tests the importance of social contacts on entrepreneurship. To measure differences in the interconnectedness of social contacts, we compare rural and agglomerated areas. A smaller community size in rural areas generates greater network closure. Agents' neighborhoods are more likely to overlap, which intensifies social contacts and thus facilitates resource mobilization. Analyzing the impact of social contacts across regions, we find that greater network closure increases the likelihood of being an entrepreneur by 1.9 to 14.2 percentage points, depending on the number of underlying social contacts. These results remain robust after applying matching techniques and concentrating on young entrepreneurs.

Language
Englisch

Bibliographic citation
Series: Jena Economic Research Papers ; No. 2008,079

Classification
Wirtschaft
Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification
Subject
Occupational choice
entrepreneurship
social contacts
Berufswahl
Unternehmer
Selbstständige
Soziale Beziehungen
Soziales Netzwerk
Stadtgröße
Deutschland

Event
Geistige Schöpfung
(who)
Bauernschuster, Stefan
Falck, Oliver
Heblich, Stephan
Event
Veröffentlichung
(who)
Friedrich Schiller University Jena and Max Planck Institute of Economics
(where)
Jena
(when)
2008

Handle
Last update
10.03.2025, 11:44 AM CET

Data provider

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Object type

  • Arbeitspapier

Associated

  • Bauernschuster, Stefan
  • Falck, Oliver
  • Heblich, Stephan
  • Friedrich Schiller University Jena and Max Planck Institute of Economics

Time of origin

  • 2008

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