Local Entrepreneurship in Context

AUDRETSCH D. B., FALCK O., FELDMAN M. P. and HEBLICH S. Local entrepreneurship in context, Regional Studies. This paper posits that regions provide locational factors which determine the industry structure and with it entrepreneurial opportunities whose exploitation influences regional dynamics. To test this interrelation between regional characteristics and entrepreneurial activities, seventy-four West German regions were classified by their endowments with locational factors. The local employees' group-specific propensity to start a business within the framework of count data models was then analysed. The empirical results suggest the distinct existence of entrepreneurial regional regimes, where local employees have a high propensity to start a business, and routinized regional regimes, with a lower propensity to generate local entrepreneurial activity.