This paper takes advantage of the Michigan Census Research Data Center to merge limited-access Census Bureau data with county level information to investigate the impact of Latino-owned business (LOB) employment share on local economic performance measures, namely per capita income, employment, poverty, and population growth. Beginning with OLS and then moving to the Spatial Durbin Model, this paper shows the impact of LOB overall employment share is insignificant. When decomposed into various industries, however, LOB employment share does have a significant impact on economic performance measures. Significance varies by industry, but the results support a divide in the impact of LOB employment share in low and high-barrier industries.
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THE DYNAMICS OF LATINO-OWNED BUSINESS WITH COMPARISIONS TO OTHER ETHNICITIES
January 2016
Working Paper Number:
CES-16-33
This paper employs the Michigan Census Research Data Center to merge three limited-access Census Bureau data sets by individual firm and establishment level to investigate the factors associated with the Latino-owned Business (LOB) location and dynamics over time. The three main LOB outcomes under analysis are as follows: (1) the probability of a business being Latino-owned as opposed to a business being Asian-owned, Black-owned, or White-owned; (2) the probability of new business entry and exit; and (3) LOB employment growth. This paper then compares these factors associated with LOB with past findings on businesses that are Asian-owned, Black-owned, and White-owned. Some notable findings include: (1) only Black business owners are less associated with using personal savings as start-up capital than Latinos; (2) the only significant coefficient on start-up capital source is personal savings and it increases the odds of survival of a Latino business by 4%; (3) on average, having Puerto Rican ancestry decreases the odds of business survival; and (4) LOB are relatively likely to start a business with a small amount of capital, which, in turn, limits their future growth.
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Locally Owned Bank Commuting Zone Concentration and Employer Start-Ups in Metropolitan, Micropolitan and Non-Core Rural Commuting Zones from 1970-2010
August 2018
Working Paper Number:
CES-18-34
Access to financial capital is vital for the sustainability of the local business sector in metropolitan and nonmetropolitan communities. Recent research on the restructuring of the financial industry from local owned banks to interstate conglomerates has raised questions about the impact on rural economies. In this paper, we begin our exploration of the Market Concentration Hypothesis and the Local Bank Hypothesis. The former proposes that there is a negative relationship between the percent of banks that are locally owned in the local economy and the rate of business births and continuations, and a positive effect on business deaths, while that latter proposes that there is a positive relationship between the percent of banks that are locally owned in the local economy and the rate of business births and continuations, and a negative effect on business deaths. To examine these hypotheses, we examine the impact of bank ownership concentration (percent of banks that are locally owned in a commuting zone) on business establishment births and deaths in metropolitan, micropolitan and non-core rural commuting zones. We employ panel regression models for the 1980-2010 time frame, demonstrating robustness to several specifications and spatial spillover effects. We find that local bank concentration is positively related to business dynamism in rural commuting zones, providing support to the importance of relational lending in rural areas, while finding support for the importance of market concentration in urban areas. The implications of this research are important for rural sociology, regional economics, and finance.
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Clusters of Entrepreneurship
October 2009
Working Paper Number:
CES-09-36
Employment growth is strongly predicted by smaller average establishment size, both across cities and across industries within cities, but there is little consensus on why this relationship exists. Traditional economic explanations emphasize factors that reduce entry costs or raise entrepreneurial returns, thereby increasing net returns and attracting entrepreneurs. A second class of theories hypothesizes that some places are endowed with a greater supply of entrepreneurship. Evidence on sales per worker does not support the higher returns for entrepreneurship rationale. Our evidence suggests that entrepreneurship is higher when fixed costs are lower and when there are more entrepreneurial people.
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Past Experience and Future Success: New Evidence on Owner Characteristics and Firm Performance
September 2010
Working Paper Number:
CES-10-24
Because the ability of entrepreneurs to start their own businesses is key to the success of the U.S. economy and to the economic mobility of many disadvantaged demographic groups, understanding why entrepreneurship activity varies across groups and geography is an increasingly important issue. As a step in this direction we employ a novel set of metrics of business success to the growing literature and find great variation across groups and metrics. For example, we find that black-owned firms grow slower than white or Asian-owned firms. However, once we condition on firm survival, the differences disappear. Interestingly, we also find differences across groups in their start-up histories. For example, Asian-owned firms are less likely than white-owned firms to have started-out as nonemployers but firms owned by all other minority groups, as well as women-owned firms, are more likely to start-out without employees.
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Brighter Prospects? Assessing the Franchise Advantage using Census Data
January 2017
Working Paper Number:
CES-17-21
This paper uses Census micro data to examine how starting a business as a franchise rather than an independent business affects its survival and growth prospects. We first consider the factors that influence the business owner's decision about being franchised, and then use different empirical approaches to correct for selection bias in our performance analyses. We find that franchised businesses on average benefit from higher survival rates and faster initial growth relative to independent businesses. However, the effects are not large and, conditional on first-year survival, the differences basically disappear. We briefly discuss potential mechanisms to explain these results. U.S. Census Bureau. All results have been reviewed to ensure that no confidential information is disclosed. Support for this research at the Michigan Census Research Data Center is gratefully acknowledged.
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International Trade, Employment, and Earnings: Evidence from U.S. Rural Counties
May 2003
Working Paper Number:
CES-03-12
Rural manufacturers in the United States are considered highly vulnerable to competition from international imports. Yet only limited empirical attention has been paid to the effects of trade on U.S. rural economies. This paper investigates the effects of international trade on U.S. rural manufacturing economies and compares the effects of trade pressures in rural versus urban areas. Our results indicate that lower export prices are associated with increased manufacturing employment and earnings in both rural and urban counties, while lower import prices are associated with reduced rural employment but increased urban employment. Greater export orientation is associated with lower employment and earnings in both rural and urban counties, while import orientation has mixed effects.
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High-Growth Entrepreneurship
January 2017
Working Paper Number:
CES-17-53
We study the patterns and determinants of job creation for a large cohort of start-up firms. Analysis of the universe of U.S. employers reveals strong persistence in employment size from firm birth to age seven, with a small fraction of firms accounting for most employment at both ages, patterns that are little explained by finely disaggregated industry controls or amount of finance. Linking to data from the Survey of Business Owners on characteristics of 54,700 founders of 36,400 start-ups, and defining 'high growth' as the top 5% of firms in the size distribution at age zero and seven, we find that women have a 30% lower probability of founding high-growth entrepreneurships at both ages. A similar gap for African-Americans at start-up disappears by age seven. Other differences with respect to race, ethnicity, and nativity are modest. Founder age is initially positively associated with high growth probability but the profile flattens after seven years and even becomes slightly negative. The education profile is initially concave, with advanced degree recipients no more likely to found high growth firms than high school graduates, but the former catch up to those with bachelor's degrees by firm age seven, while the latter do not. Most other relationships of high growth with founder characteristics are highly persistent over time. Prior business ownership is strongly positively associated, and veteran experience negatively associated, with high growth. A larger founding team raises the probability of high growth, while diversity (by gender, age, race/ethnicity, or nativity) either lowers the probability or has little effect. More start-up capital raises the high-growth propensity of firms founded by a sole proprietor, women, minorities, immigrants, veterans, novice entrepreneurs, and those who are younger or with less education. Perhaps surprisingly, women, minorities, and those with less education tend to choose high growth industries, but fewer of them achieve high growth compared to their industry peers.
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OWNER CHARACTERISTICS AND FIRM PERFORMANCE DURING THE GREAT RECESSION
September 2014
Working Paper Number:
CES-14-36
Minority owned businesses are an increasing important component of the U.S. economy, growing at twice the rate of all U.S. businesses between 2002 and 2007. However, a growing literature indicates that minority-owned businesses may have been especially impacted by the Great Recession. As house prices declined, foreclosures fell disproportionately on urban minority neighborhoods and one of the sources of credit for business owners was severely constrained. Using 2002-2011 data from the Longitudinal Business Database linked to the 2002 Survey of Business Owners, this paper adds to the literature by examining the employment growth and survival of minority and women employer businesses during the last decade, including the Great Recession. At first glance, our preliminary findings suggest that black and women-owned businesses underperform white, male-owned businesses, that Asian-owned businesses outperform other groups, and that Hispanic-owned businesses outperform non-Hispanic ones in regards to employment growth. However, when we look only at continuing firms, black-owned businesses outperform white-owned businesses in terms of employment growth. At the same time, we also find that the recession appears to have impacted black-owned and Hispanic-owned businesses more severely than their counterparts, in terms of employment growth as well as survival. This is also the case for continuing black and Hispanic-owned firms.
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Startup Dynamics: Transitioning from Nonemployer Firms to Employer Firms, Survival, and Job Creation
April 2025
Working Paper Number:
CES-25-26
Understanding the dynamics of startup businesses' growth, exit, and survival is crucial for fostering entrepreneurship. Among the nearly 30 million registered businesses in the United States, fewer than six million have employees beyond the business owners. This research addresses the gap in understanding which companies transition to employer businesses and the mechanisms behind this process. Job creation remains a critical concern for policymakers, researchers, and advocacy groups. This study aims to illuminate the transition from non-employer businesses to employer businesses and explore job creation by new startups. Leveraging newly available microdata from the U.S. Census Bureau, we seek to gain deeper insights into firm survival, job creation by startups, and the transition from non-employer to employer status.
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The Characteristics of Business Owners (CBO) Database
October 1989
Working Paper Number:
CES-89-09
The Bureau of the Census conducted the Characteristics of Business Owners (CBO) survey for the Small Business Administration and the Minority Business Development Agency in 1986. The CBO collected information from a national sample of 126,000 business owners, surveying the demographic and economic characteristics of owners and the economic performance of their firms. A major feature of the CBO is the large numbers of Hispanic, Asian and Other, Black and Women businesses, in addition to nonminority, male-owned businesses. The CBO data series also serves the broader purpose of providing data on characteristics of owners and firms in the small business population. This paper provides a report of the purpose, content, and basic procedures used for the survey and presents a preliminary discussion of the coverage and overall response.
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