The relative stability of differences in entrepreneurial activity across countries suggests that other than economic factors are at play. The present paper offers some new thoughts about the determinants of entrepreneurial attitudes and activities by testing the relationship between institutional variables and cross-country differences in the preferences for self-employment as well as in actual selfemployment. Data of the 25 member states of the European Union as well as the US are used. The results show that country specific (cultural) variables seem to explain the preference for entrepreneurship but not the actual entrepreneurship. The present paper also introduces the remaining four papers of the special issue of the Journal of Evolutionary Economics around the theme Entrepreneurship and Culture.