Frank Fossen

Summary

Frank Fossen is a Professor of Economics and the Charles N. Mathewson Professor in Entrepreneurship in the Department of Economics at the University of Nevada, Reno. He is also the Field Editor for “Economics and Entrepreneurship” at the Journal of Business Venturing. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from Freie Universität Berlin in 2008.

Frank Fossen’s research covers the economics of entrepreneurship, public economics, and labor economics. For example, he investigates how public policies affect entrepreneurship, the importance of credit and wealth, the impacts of innovative technologies such as AI, and the roles of economic preferences and personality in entrepreneurship. He has published more than forty papers in peer-reviewed journals, including Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, European Economic Review, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, JPE Microeconomics, and Journal of Financial Intermediation.

CV and list of publications

Refereed journal publications since 2022

• Frank M. Fossen, Levent Neyse, and Carsten Schröder (2025): “Does Cognitive Reflection Relate to Preferences and Socio-Economic Outcomes?” Journal of Political Economy Microeconomics 3(2) , 303-343.
• Frank M. Fossen, Md Mobarak Hossain, Sankar Mukhopadhyay, and Peter Toth (2025): “The Cost of Health Insurance and Entry into Entrepreneurship,” Small Business Economics 64, 383-405.
• Frank M. Fossen, Trevor McLemore, and Alina Sorgner (2024): “Artificial Intelligence and Entrepreneurship,” Foundations and Trends in Entrepreneurship 20(8), 781-904. Preprint available as IZA Discussion Paper 17055.
• Frank M. Fossen and Levent Neyse (2024): “Entrepreneurship, Management, and Cognitive Reflection: A Preregistered Replication Study with Extensions,” Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 48(4), 1082-1109
• Frank M. Fossen, Johannes König, and Carsten Schröder (2024): “Risk Preference and Entrepreneurial Investment at the Top of the Wealth Distribution,” Empirical Economics 66, 735-761.
• Levent Neyse, Frank M. Fossen, Magnus Johannesson, and Anna Dreber (2023): “Cognitive Reflection and 2D:4D: Evidence from a Large Population Sample,” Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 209, 288-307.
• Francesco Carbonero, Jeremy Davies, Ekkehard Ernst, Frank M. Fossen, Daniel Samaan, and Alina Sorgner (2023): “The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Labor Markets in Developing Countries: A New Method with an Illustration for Lao PDR and Urban Viet Nam,” Journal of Evolutionary Economics 33, 707-736.
• Robert W. Fairlie, Frank M. Fossen, Reid Johnsen, and Gentian Droboniku (2022): “Were Small Businesses More Likely to Permanently Close in the Pandemic?,”Small Business Economics 60, 1613-1629.
• Ege Can and Frank M. Fossen (2022): “The Enforceability of Non-Compete Agreements and Different Types of Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Utah and Massachusetts,” Journal of Entrepreneurship and Public Policy 11(2/3), 223-252.
• Marco Caliendo, Frank M. Fossen, and Alexander S. Kritikos (2022): “Personality Characteristics and the Decision to Hire,” Industrial and Corporate Change 31(3), 736-761.
• Frank M Fossen, Daniel Samaan, and Alina Sorgner (2022): “How are Patented AI, Software and Robot Technologies Related to Wage Changes in the United States?” Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence 5.
• Robert W. Fairlie and Frank M. Fossen (2022): “The 2021 Paycheck Protection Program Reboot: Loan Disbursement to Employer and Nonemployer Businesses in Minority Communities,” AEA Papers and Proceedings 112, 287-291.
• Robert W. Fairlie and Frank M. Fossen (2022): “The Early Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Business Sales,”Small Business Economics 58, 1853-1864.
• Robert W. Fairlie and Frank M. Fossen (2022): “Did the Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program Get Disbursed to Minority Communities in the Early Stages of COVID-19?” Small Business Economics 58(2), 829-842.
• Frank M. Fossen and Alina Sorgner (2022): “New Digital Technologies and Heterogeneous Wage and Employment Dynamics in the United States: Evidence from Individual-level Data,” Technological Forecasting and Social Change 175, 121381.
• Frank M. Fossen, Levent Neyse, Magnus Johannesson, and Anna Dreber (2022): “2D:4D and Self-Employment: A Preregistered Replication Study in a Large General Population Sample,” Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 46(1), 21-43.

Recent working papers

• Md Mobarak Hossain, Frank M. Fossen, and Sankar Mukhopadhyay (2025): “An Estimated Model of Employer and Non-Employer Entrepreneurship,” IZA Discussion Paper 18009.
• Robert Fairlie, Frank M. Fossen, Andrew C. Johnston, and Ke Lyu (2025): “The Effects of Local Taxes and Incentives on Entrepreneurship: Evidence from the Universe of U.S. Startups,” SSRN Working Paper.
• Yifan Yang, Magnus Johannesson, Frank M. Fossen, Levent Neyse, and Felix Holzmeister (2025): “Heterogeneity in Gender Differences in Self-reported Political Preferences, Trust, and Well-being across 39 European Countries,” SSRN Working Paper.
• Yifan Yang, Magnus Johanneson, Anna Dreber, Frank M. Fossen, Levent Neyse, and Felix Holzmeister (2025): “Does Having Daughters Affect Political Preferences? A High-powered Meta-analysis of Many Surveys,” SSRN Working Paper.
• Thomas Åstebro, Frank M. Fossen, and Cédric Gutierrez (2024): “Entrepreneurs: Clueless, Biased, Poor Heuristics, or Bayesian Machines?” IZA Discussion Paper 17231.
• Emilio Congregado, Frank M. Fossen, Nicola Rubino, and David Troncoso (2024): “Long-Term Effects of Shocks on New Opportunity and Necessity Entrepreneurship,” IZA Discussion Paper 16930.
• Ege Can and Frank M. Fossen (2023): “Income Taxation and Hours Worked in Different Types of Entrepreneurship,” IZA Discussion Paper 16683.
• Frank M. Fossen and Stela Ivanova (2021): “Obesity and Self-Employment: Health and Social Mechanisms of the Transition to Self-Employment,” Academy of Management Annual Meeting Proceedings (abstract).

Most of Frank Fossen's publications can be downloaded from Google Scholar or RePEc.

Teaching

Fall 2025

• ECON 102: Principles of Microeconomics (undergraduate course)
• ECON 743: Applied Microeconometric Methods (graduate course)

Spring 2026

• ECON 758: Empirical Public Economics (graduate course)
• ECON/ENT 473/673: Economics of Entrepreneurship (undergraduate and graduate course)

All syllabi and course materials are provided on WebCampus.