Verlag:
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften, Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft, Kiel und Hamburg
Zusammenfassung:
In this paper, we study the impact of the entry costs imposed by the German Limited Liability Company Law on firm entry. The law implies an expensive and complex incorporation process. As entrepreneurs choose between legal forms when entering the market, either a legal form with limited liability or without it, we suggest an empirical approach for identifying entry cost effects that takes this decision into account by exploiting the natural experiment in entry regulation following from German reunification. The empirical findings show, in particular, that entry costs based on the German Limited Liability Company Law cause an increase in entry size for limited liability firms. In addition, we report that the entry rate for limited liability firms, as well as the sustained entry rate, is lowered.