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International Small Business Journal
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Regional Opportunities and Policy Initiatives for New Venture Creation

Ingrid Verheul

Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands, verheul{at}few.eur.nl

Martin Carree

Maastricht University, The Netherlands, m.carree{at}maastrichtuniversity.nl

Enrico Santarelli

University of Bologna, Italy, enrico.santarelli{at}unibo.it

This article investigates the determinants of new venture creation across industries and locations for 103 Italian provinces between 1997 and 2003. Allowing for differences in regional opportunities across industries, we investigate the impact of a range of factors, including policy initiatives, on new firm formation in manufacturing, retailing and wholesaling, hotels and restaurants. Our results show that regions with industrial districts are characterized by higher start-up rates in manufacturing and that wage costs deter entry in this industry. Firm entry in commercial sectors appears to be higher in large cities and areas with strong economic progress. For hotels and restaurants we find that tourism positively influences new firm formation. We do not find a significant effect of recently introduced regional laws promoting new firm formation in Italy.

Key Words: Italian provinces • policy initiatives • venture creation

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International Small Business Journal, Vol. 27, No. 5, 608-625 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0266242609338757
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This Article
Right arrow Abstract Freely available
Right arrow Résumé
Right arrow Zusammenfassung
Right arrow Resumen
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Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
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Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
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Right arrow Articles by Verheul, I.
Right arrow Articles by Santarelli, E.
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Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?