Historical shocks and persistence of economic activity: evidence on self-employment from a unique natural experiment

This paper investigates the persistence of self-employment in the districts of Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave, between 1925 and 2010. The area experienced a number of disruptive historical shocks during this period. This setting rules out the fact that the persistence of self-employment can be explained by the persistence of institutions and culture. Nevertheless, a high level of persistence of industry-specific self-employment rates is found....