Search Results
Working Paper
Labor market transitions and self-employment
The self-employed are a heterogeneous group. Some are self-employed because they are good at it, while others are self-employed because they cannot find a better paying salaried job. Data from the CPS for prime age males show that workers are almost twice as likely to enter self-employment from unemployment as from paid employment. Furthermore, almost 22% of workers exit self-employment within the year with most returning to paid employment. This paper develops a framework for examining transitions between the labor market states of unemployment, paid employment, and self-employment. The ...
Journal Article
The self-employment duration of younger men over the business cycle
Spells of self-employment for younger men are typically of short duration with slightly more than half lasting two years or less. This article examines factors that lead to longer durations, focusing on the role of cyclical factors in distinguishing entrepreneurs from discouraged wage workers.
Journal Article
Do ethnic enclaves and networks promote immigrant self-employment?
The author assesses how ethnic enclaves and networks affect the self-employment decisions of immigrants in the U.S. She finds that ethnic networks play a positive role in the likelihood that immigrants will choose self-employment as an alternative to wage employment. However, there is no clear impact of ethnic geographical concentrations on the self-employment decision.
Newsletter
Self-employed immigrants: an analysis of recent data
This article identifies the factors that influence the self- employment decision for U.S. immigrants, including human capital, years in the U.S., geographic concentration, and labor market characteristics.
Working Paper
Self-employment as an alternative to unemployment
Data from the NLSY show that more than a quarter of all younger men experience some period of self- employment. Many of them return to wage work. This paper analyzes a simple model of job search and self- employment where self- employment provides an alternative source of income for unemployed workers. Self- employment is distinct from wage sector employment in two important respects. First, self- employment is a low-income, low- variation alternative to wage work. Second, once a worker enters self-employment, he loses eligibility to receive unemployment insurance benefits?at least until he ...
Working Paper
Self-employment in the global economy
This paper studies the eff ects of foreign competition on self-employment levels. We begin by pointing out a previously unknown fact: the greater the exposure to foreign competition, the smaller the fraction of self-employed people. This fact holds across very different countries, across relatively similar countries like European Union members, and across industries within the United States. We develop a model where heterogeneous agents select themselves into being either employees or self-employed in the spirit of Lucas (1978). This, in turn, translates into intra-industry firm heterogeneity ...
Working Paper
Do enclaves matter in immigrants’ self-employment decision?
This paper uses 2000 U.S. Census data to study the determinants of self-employment decisions among immigrants. It outlines a theoretical framework for analyzing the role of ethnic enclaves in the self-employment decision of immigrants that captures nuances involved in the interaction between ethnic enclaves and different ethnic groups. It assesses the effect of ethnic enclaves for different groups and explores explanations for differences. The results show that higher ethnic concentration in metropolitan areas is positively related to the probability of self-employment of immigrants. However, ...
Working Paper
Credit and self-employment
Limited personal liability for debts has long been justified as a tool to promote entrepreneurial risk taking by providing insurance to the borrower in the event of low returns. Nonetheless, such limits erode repayment incentives, and so may increase unsecured borrowing costs. Our paper is the first to evaluate the tradeoff between credit costs and insurance against failure. We build a life-cycle model with risky, and repeated, occupational choice in the presence of defaultable debt contracts. We find that limits to liability can encourage self-employment, and alter the timing, size, and ...
Journal Article
Wanted: Entrepreneurs (just don't ask for a job description)
If entrepreneurship is so important, why don't we know more about it?
Journal Article
North Texas income dip may reflect decline in education