Self-employment is associated with entrepreneurship and a motivation to pursue an opportunity. Previous research indicates that people also become self-employed because of limited opportunities in the wage sector. Using a unique set of data that links the American Community Survey to Form 1040 and W-2 records, this paper extends the existing literature by examining self-employment duration for five consecutive entry cohorts, including two cohorts who entered self-employment during the Great Recession. Severely limited labor market opportunities may have driven many in the recession cohorts to enter self-employment, while those entering self-employment during the boom may have been pursuing opportunities under favorable market conditions. To more explicitly test the concept of "necessity" versus "opportunity" self-employment, we also examine the pre-entry wage labor attachment of entrants. Specifically, we ask whether an association exists between wage labor attachment and the duration of self-employment. We also explore whether the demographic/socio-economic characteristics and self-employment exit behavior of the cohorts are different, and if so, how. We find evidence consistent with the existence of "necessity" vs. "opportunity" self-employment types.
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Gender Differences in Self-employment Duration: the Case of Opportunity and Necessity Entrepreneurs
September 2019
Working Paper Number:
CES-19-24
A strand of the self-employment literature suggests that those 'pushed' into self-employment out of necessity may perform differently from those 'pulled' into self-employment to pursue a business opportunity. While findings on self-employment outcomes by self-employed type are not unanimous, there is mounting evidence that performance outcomes differ between these two self-employed types. Another strand of the literature has found important gender differences in self-employment entry rates, motivations for entry, and outcomes. Using a unique set of data that links the American Community Survey to administrative data from Form 1040 and W-2 records, we bring together these two strands of the literature. We explore whether there are gender differences in self-employment duration of self-employed types. In particular, we examine the likelihood of self-employment exit towards unemployment versus the wage sector for five consecutive entry cohorts, including two cohorts who entered self-employment during the Great Recession. Severely limited labor-market opportunities may have driven many in the recession cohorts to enter self-employment, while those entering self-employment during the boom may have been pursuing opportunities under favorable market conditions. To more explicitly test the concept of 'necessity' versus 'opportunity' self-employment, we also examine the wage labor attachment (or weeks worked in the wage sector) in the year prior to becoming self-employed. We find that, within the cohorts we examine, there are gender differences in the rate at which men and women depart self-employment for either wage work or non-participation, but that the patterns are dependent on pre self-employment wage-sector attachment and cohort effects.
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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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Changes in EITC Eligibility and Participation, 2005'2009
July 2014
Working Paper Number:
carra-2014-04
The rate of participation in the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) has been widely studied, but changes over time in eligibility for the credit have received less attention. One question of importance to policy-makers is whether (or by how much) eligibility might increase during economic downturns. The EITC is fundamentally tied to work. During periods of high unemployment, eligibility may decrease due to a lower number of workers - especially low-skilled workers - filing for a given tax year. On the other hand, family structure and underemployment may lead to increases in eligibility. For example, earners may become eligible when a two-earner family loses one job or when an earner works part of the year or fewer hours. Using IRS tax data linked with the Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS ASEC), I examine changes in EITC eligibility and take-up between tax years 2005 and 2009, during which time the Great Recession began and ended. Employing fixed-effects models, I assess patterns of eligibility among demographic groups based on characteristics that also predict labor market outcomes. Results indicate that, in a period when overall EITC eligibility rates increased, the state unemployment rate had a significant positive effect on eligibility and a significant negative effect on take-up. Meanwhile, although joint filers, those with more children, and men experienced increasing rates of eligibility, those with less education experienced decreasing rates. Results point to the possibility that labor market groups who experienced the highest rates of unemployment in the recession may have become ineligible due to full-year job loss.
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Exiting Self-Employment: An Analysis of Asian Immigrant-Owned Small Businesses
November 1998
Working Paper Number:
CES-98-13
Part of the uniqueness of the immigrant Asian business community in the U.S. lies in the fact that many among the highly educated pursue self-employment in small-scale, low-yielding retail and personal service fields. This study analyzes owner departure for a nationwide sample of small businesses owned by Asian Indian and Filipino immigrants and a comparison group of Asian nonimmigrant firm owners. Controlling for firm and owner traits, highly educated Asian immigrant owners are more likely than others to exit self-employment over the 1987-1991 period; exit from traditional fields (retail and personal services) is pronounced. These exit patterns do not typify the comparison group. Findings are consistent with the hypothesis that self-employment is often a form of underemployment among Asian immigrants.
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Virtual Charter Students Have Worse Labor Market Outcomes as Young Adults
June 2023
Working Paper Number:
CES-23-32
Virtual charter schools are increasingly popular, yet there is no research on the long-term outcomes of virtual charter students. We link statewide education records from Oregon with earnings information from IRS records housed at the U.S. Census Bureau to provide evidence on how virtual charter students fare as young adults. Virtual charter students have substantially worse high school graduation rates, college enrollment rates, bachelor's degree attainment, employment rates, and earnings than students in traditional public schools. Although there is growing demand for virtual charter schools, our results suggest that students who enroll in virtual charters may face negative long-term consequences.
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School Discipline and Racial Disparities in Early Adulthood
June 2021
Working Paper Number:
CES-21-14
Despite interest in the role of school discipline in the creation of racial inequality, previous research has been unable to identify how students who receive suspensions in school differ from unsuspended classmates on key young adult outcomes. We utilize novel data to document the links between high school discipline and important young adult outcomes related to criminal justice contact, social safety net program participation, post-secondary education, and the labor market. We show that the link between school discipline and young adult outcomes tends to be stronger for Black students than for White students, and that inequality in exposure to school discipline accounts for approximately 30 percent of the Black-White disparities in young adult criminal justice outcomes and SNAP receipt.
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Garage Entrepreneurs or just Self-Employed? An Investigation into Nonemployer Entrepreneurship
October 2024
Working Paper Number:
CES-24-61
Nonemployers, businesses without employees, account for most businesses in the U.S. yet are poorly understood. We use restricted administrative and survey data to describe nonemployer dynamics, overall performance, and performance by demographic group. We find that eventual outcome ' migration to employer status, continuing as a nonemployer, or exit ' is closely related to receipt growth. We provide estimates of employment creation by firms that began as nonemployers and become employers (migrants), estimating that relative to all firms born in 1996, nonemployer migrants accounted for 3-17% of all net jobs in the seventh year after startup. Moreover, we find that migrants' employment creation declined by 54% for the cohorts born between 1996 to 2014. Our results are consistent with increased adjustment frictions in recent periods, and suggest accessibility to transformative entrepreneurship for everyday Americans has declined.
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Firms Started As Franchises Have Lower Survival Rates Than Independent Small Business Startups
May 1994
Working Paper Number:
CES-94-03
Aspiring entrepreneurs choosing to become franchisees certainly expect to improve their chances of survival during the turbulent early years of business startup and operation. Alignment with a franchiser parent company offers the franchisee managerial assistance, access to financial capital, and access to markets via the right to utilize the parent company trademark. This study examines survival patterns among franchise and nonfranchise small firms started between 1984 and 1987: survival through late 1991 is tracked for all firms. Although the franchise operations are larger scale, better capitalized young firms, the independent business startups are found to be more profitable and their survival prospects are better than those of franchises.
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MICROENTERPRISE AS AN EXIT ROUTE FROM POVERTY:* RECOMMENDATIONS FOR PROGRAMS AND POLICY MAKERS
November 1998
Working Paper Number:
CES-98-17
The objective of this study is to shed light on whether and how microenterprise programs can be used as an economic development strategy to enable low-income people to achieve self-sufficiency through self-employment. Our findings provide little support for the notion that hard work and a small loan are sufficient ingredients for business success. Viable small firms are usually headed by well-educated owners and/or those possessing specific skills that serve as a basis for successful business creation and operation. Potential entrepreneurs lacking assets, skills, and support networks are unlikely to support themselves through self-employment earnings alone. As a poverty alleviation strategy, microenterprise is not a panacea. Nevertheless, programs targeting the poor who do have skills, resources, and support networks can be useful vehicles for helping some to escape poverty.
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Financing Small Business Creation: The Case of Chinese and Korean Immigrant Entrepreneurs
September 1996
Working Paper Number:
CES-96-09
Prevailing scholarly literature misrepresents the realities of how immigrant Korean and Chinese entrepreneurs finance entry into small business. Supportive peer and community subgroups are not major sources of startup capital; the majority of all loan funds are raised by borrowing from financial institutions. The major single funding source is equity capital, which derives almost entirely from family household wealth holdings. Controlling for firm and owner traits, comparison groups of nonminority and Asian American nonimmigrant self-employed borrowers are shown to have greater access to loan sources than Korean and Chinese immigrants. High equity capital investment offsets this disadvantage. Absent rotating credit associations, and other minor debt sources, the average Korean/Chinese startup possesses substantially more financial capital than its nonminority counterparts.
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