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@article{ Wagner2006, title = {Are Nascent Entrepreneurs Jacks-of-all-trades? A Test of Lazear's Theory of Entrepreneurship with German Data*}, author = {Wagner, Joachim}, journal = {Applied Economics}, number = {20}, pages = {2415-2419}, volume = {38}, year = {2006}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1080/00036840500427783}, urn = {https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-239384}, abstract = {Abstract: In a recent paper Edward Lazear proposed the jack-of-all-trades view of entrepreneurship. Based on a coherent model of the choice between self-employment and paid employment he shows that having a background in a large number of different roles increases the probability of becoming an entrepreneur. The intuition behind this proposition is that entrepreneurs must have sufficient knowledge in a variety of areas to put together the many ingredients needed for survival and success in a business, while for paid employees it suffices and pays to be a specialist in the field demanded by the job taken. This paper contributes to the entrepreneurship literature by empirically testing Lazear's hypothesis using a large recent representative sample of the German population. The empirical estimation takes the rare events nature of becoming a nascent entrepreneur and the regional stratification of the sample into account. The results illustrate the statistical significance and economic importance of the jack-of-all-trades theory.}, }