The impact of industry structure on start-up activities-An analysis for West German planning regions 1983-1997

摘要: In our contribution we analyse business start-ups in West German planning regions for the 1983-97 period. The data was generated on the basis of social insurance statistics. During that period start-up activities have increased in most of the regions with a rising share of new service firms. According to a shift-share analysis the impact of a regions' industrial structure on the number of start-ups is, on average, rather low. However, for some regions the calculated structural and locational impact is rather strong indicating a significant potential effect of policy measures aimed at stimulating start-up activities.