IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/bejeap/v10y2010i1n10.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Mexican-American Entrepreneurship

Author

Listed:
  • Fairlie Robert

    (University of California, Santa Cruz)

  • Woodruff Christopher M.

    (University of California, San Diego)

Abstract

We conduct a comprehensive analysis of Mexican-American entrepreneurship. We find that low levels of education and wealth explain the entire gap between Mexican immigrants and non-Latino whites in business formation rates; together with language ability, these factors explain nearly the entire gap in business income. Legal status represents an additional barrier for Mexican immigrants, reducing business ownership rates by 0.7 percentage points. Human and financial capital deficiencies limit business ownership and business success among second and third-generation Mexican-Americans to a lesser extent. These findings have implications for the debates over the assimilation of Mexican-Americans in the United States.

Suggested Citation

  • Fairlie Robert & Woodruff Christopher M., 2010. "Mexican-American Entrepreneurship," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-44, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:bejeap:v:10:y:2010:i:1:n:10
    DOI: 10.2202/1935-1682.2479
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.2202/1935-1682.2479
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.2202/1935-1682.2479?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brian Duncan & Stephen J. Trejo, 2011. "Intermarriage and the Intergenerational Transmission of Ethnic Identity and Human Capital for Mexican Americans," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 29(2), pages 195-227.
    2. Woodruff, Christopher & Zenteno, Rene, 2007. "Migration networks and microenterprises in Mexico," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 509-528, March.
    3. Magnus Lofstrom, 2002. "Labor market assimilation and the self-employment decision of immigrant entrepreneurs," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 15(1), pages 83-114.
    4. Robert W. Fairlie & Alicia M. Robb, 2008. "Race and Entrepreneurial Success: Black-, Asian-, and White-Owned Businesses in the United States," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 026206281x, December.
    5. Michael Hout & Harvey Rosen, 2000. "Self-Employment, Family Background, and Race," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 35(4), pages 670-692.
    6. Douglas Holtz-Eakin & David Joulfaian & Harvey S. Rosen, 1994. "Entrepreneurial Decisions and Liquidity Constraints," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 25(2), pages 334-347, Summer.
    7. Francine D. Blau & Lawrence M. Kahn, 2007. "Gender and Assimilation among Mexican Americans," NBER Chapters, in: Mexican Immigration to the United States, pages 57-106, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Evans, David S & Leighton, Linda S, 1989. "Some Empirical Aspects of Entrepreneurship," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(3), pages 519-535, June.
    9. Stephen J. Trejo, 2003. "Intergenerational Progress of Mexican-Origin Workers in the U.S. Labor Market," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 38(3).
    10. Kenneth Clark & Stephen Drinkwater, 2002. "Enclaves, neighbourhood effects and employment outcomes: Ethnic minorities in England and Wales," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 15(1), pages 5-29.
    11. Deborah A. Cobb-Clark & Vincent A. Hildebrand, 2006. "The Wealth of Mexican Americans," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 41(4).
    12. Evans, David S & Jovanovic, Boyan, 1989. "An Estimated Model of Entrepreneurial Choice under Liquidity Constraints," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(4), pages 808-827, August.
    13. Robert W. Fairlie & Alicia M. Robb, 2007. "Why Are Black-Owned Businesses Less Successful than White-Owned Businesses? The Role of Families, Inheritances, and Business Human Capital," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 25(2), pages 289-323.
    14. Sherrie A. Kossoudji & Deborah A. Cobb-Clark, 2002. "Coming out of the Shadows: Learning about Legal Status and Wages from the Legalized Population," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 20(3), pages 598-628, July.
    15. Avery, Robert B. & Bostic, Raphael W. & Samolyk, Katherine A., 1998. "The role of personal wealth in small business finance," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 22(6-8), pages 1019-1061, August.
    16. Robert W. Fairlie & Bruce D. Meyer, 1996. "Ethnic and Racial Self-Employment Differences and Possible Explanations," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 31(4), pages 757-793.
    17. Ken Cavalluzzo & John Wolken, 2005. "Small Business Loan Turndowns, Personal Wealth, and Discrimination," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 78(6), pages 2153-2178, November.
    18. Brian Duncan & Stephen J. Trejo, 2007. "Ethnic Identification, Intermarriage, and Unmeasured Progress by Mexican Americans," NBER Chapters, in: Mexican Immigration to the United States, pages 229-268, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Fairlie, Robert W, 1999. "The Absence of the African-American Owned Business: An Analysis of the Dynamics of Self-Employment," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 17(1), pages 80-108, January.
    20. Erik Hurst & Annamaria Lusardi, 2004. "Liquidity Constraints, Household Wealth, and Entrepreneurship," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(2), pages 319-347, April.
    21. Oaxaca, Ronald, 1973. "Male-Female Wage Differentials in Urban Labor Markets," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 14(3), pages 693-709, October.
    22. Trejo, Stephen J, 1997. "Why Do Mexican Americans Earn Low Wages?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(6), pages 1235-1268, December.
    23. David G. Blanchflower & Phillip B. Levine & David J. Zimmerman, 2003. "Discrimination in the Small-Business Credit Market," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(4), pages 930-943, November.
    24. George J. Borjas, 2007. "Mexican Immigration to the United States," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number borj06-1, March.
    25. Ken S. Cavalluzzo, 2002. "Competition, Small Business Financing, and Discrimination: Evidence from a New Survey," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 75(4), pages 641-680, October.
    26. Borjas, George J & Bronars, Stephen G, 1989. "Consumer Discrimination and Self-employment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(3), pages 581-605, June.
    27. Schuetze, Herb J., 2000. "Taxes, economic conditions and recent trends in male self-employment: a Canada-US comparison," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(5), pages 507-544, September.
    28. Lofstrom, Magnus & Wang, Chunbei, 2006. "Hispanic Self-Employment: A Dynamic Analysis of Business Ownership," IZA Discussion Papers 2101, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    29. Robert W. Fairlie & Christopher Woodruff, 2007. "Mexican Entrepreneurship: A Comparison of Self-Employment in Mexico and the United States," NBER Chapters, in: Mexican Immigration to the United States, pages 123-158, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    30. William D. Bradford, 2003. "The Wealth Dynamics of Entrepreneurship for Black and White Families in the U.S," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 49(1), pages 89-116, March.
    31. Alan S. Blinder, 1973. "Wage Discrimination: Reduced Form and Structural Estimates," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 8(4), pages 436-455.
    32. P. Köllinger & M. Minniti, 2006. "Not for Lack of Trying: American Entrepreneurship in Black and White," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 27(1), pages 59-79, August.
    33. Dunn, Thomas & Holtz-Eakin, Douglas, 2000. "Financial Capital, Human Capital, and the Transition to Self-Employment: Evidence from Intergenerational Links," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 18(2), pages 282-305, April.
    34. Bruce D. Meyer, 1990. "Why Are There So Few Black Entrepreneurs?," NBER Working Papers 3537, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    35. Oaxaca, Ronald L. & Ransom, Michael R., 1994. "On discrimination and the decomposition of wage differentials," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 5-21, March.
    36. Thomas Dunn & Douglas Holtz-Eakin, 1996. "Financial Capital, Human Capital, and the Transition to Self-Employment:Evidence from Intergenerational Links," NBER Working Papers 5622, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Vincenzo Butticè & Diego Useche, 2022. "Crowdfunding to overcome the immigrant entrepreneurs’ liability of outsidership: the role of internal social capital," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 59(4), pages 1519-1540, December.
    2. Sari Pekkala Kerr & William R. Kerr & Tina Xu, 2017. "Personality Traits of Entrepreneurs: A Review of Recent Literature," NBER Working Papers 24097, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Maude Toussaint-Comeau, 2005. "Do enclaves matter in immigrants’ self-employment decision?," Working Paper Series WP-05-23, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    4. Robert Fairlie, 2024. "The impacts of COVID‐19 on racial inequality in business earnings," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(1), pages 258-288, January.
    5. Katare, Bhagyashree & Ren, Lifeng & Marshall, Maria I., 2017. "Immigrant Farm and Agricultural Entrepreneurship," 2017 Annual Meeting, July 30-August 1, Chicago, Illinois 258103, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    6. Fairlie, Robert W. & Lofstrom, Magnus, 2013. "Immigration and Entrepreneurship," IZA Discussion Papers 7669, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Richard Fabling, 2018. "Entrepreneurial beginnings: Transitions to self-employment and the creation of jobs," Working Papers 18_12, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research.
    8. Peterson, Robert A. & Crittenden, Victoria L., 2020. "Exploring customer orientation as a marketing strategy of Mexican-American entrepreneurs," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 139-148.
    9. Robert W. Fairlie, 2013. "Entrepreneurship, Economic Conditions, and the Great Recession," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(2), pages 207-231, June.
    10. Catia Batista & Tara McIndoe-Calder & Pedro C. Vicente, 2017. "Return Migration, Self-selection and Entrepreneurship," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 79(5), pages 797-821, October.
    11. Pia M. Orrenius & Madeline Zavodny & Emily Gutierrez, 2018. "Do State Employment Eligibility Verification Laws Affect Job Turnover?," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 36(2), pages 394-409, April.
    12. Cathy Yang Liu, 2012. "Intrametropolitan Opportunity Structure and the Self-Employment of Asian and Latino Immigrants," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 26(2), pages 178-192, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Robert W. Fairlie & Alicia M. Robb, 2008. "Race and Entrepreneurial Success: Black-, Asian-, and White-Owned Businesses in the United States," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 026206281x, December.
    2. Robert W. Fairlie & Alicia M. Robb, 2007. "Why Are Black-Owned Businesses Less Successful than White-Owned Businesses? The Role of Families, Inheritances, and Business Human Capital," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 25(2), pages 289-323.
    3. Fairlie, Robert W. & Lofstrom, Magnus, 2013. "Immigration and Entrepreneurship," IZA Discussion Papers 7669, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Nadia Simoes & Nuno Crespo & Sandrina B. Moreira, 2016. "Individual Determinants Of Self-Employment Entry: What Do We Really Know?," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(4), pages 783-806, September.
    5. Robert W. Fairlie, 2013. "Entrepreneurship, Economic Conditions, and the Great Recession," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(2), pages 207-231, June.
    6. Magnus Lofstrom & Timothy Bates, 2013. "African Americans’ pursuit of self-employment," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 40(1), pages 73-86, January.
    7. Robert W. Fairlie, 2013. "Minority and immigrant entrepreneurs: access to financial capital," Chapters, in: Amelie F. Constant & Klaus F. Zimmermann (ed.), International Handbook on the Economics of Migration, chapter 8, pages 153-175, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    8. Alicia M. Robb & Robert W. Fairlie, 2007. "Access to Financial Capital among U.S. Businesses: The Case of African American Firms," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 613(1), pages 47-72, September.
    9. Magnus Lofstrom, 2013. "Does self-employment increase the economic well-being of low-skilled workers?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 40(4), pages 933-952, May.
    10. Robert W. Fairlie & Harry A. Krashinsky, 2012. "Liquidity Constraints, Household Wealth, And Entrepreneurship Revisited," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 58(2), pages 279-306, June.
    11. Aaron K. Chatterji & Kenneth Y. Chay & Robert W. Fairlie, 2014. "The Impact of City Contracting Set-Asides on Black Self-Employment and Employment," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 32(3), pages 507-561.
    12. Robert W. Fairlie, 2002. "Drug Dealing and Legitimate Self-Employment," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 20(3), pages 538-567, July.
    13. Magnus Lofstrom & Chunbei Wang, 2007. "Mexican-Hispanic Self-Employment Entry: The Role of Business Start-Up Constraints," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 613(1), pages 32-46, September.
    14. Ruth Oyelere & Willie Belton, 2013. "Black–White gap in self-employment. Does intra-race heterogeneity exist?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 41(1), pages 25-39, June.
    15. Blanchflower, David G., 2007. "Entrepreneurship in the United States," IZA Discussion Papers 3130, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    16. Fairlie, Robert W, 1999. "The Absence of the African-American Owned Business: An Analysis of the Dynamics of Self-Employment," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 17(1), pages 80-108, January.
    17. David Blanchflower, 2009. "Minority self-employment in the United States and the impact of affirmative action programs," Annals of Finance, Springer, vol. 5(3), pages 361-396, June.
    18. Robert W. Fairlie, 2004. "Recent Trends in Ethnic and Racial Business Ownership," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 203-218, October.
    19. Román, Concepción & Congregado, Emilio & Millán, José María, 2013. "Start-up incentives: Entrepreneurship policy or active labour market programme?," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 151-175.
    20. Millán, José María & Congregado, Emilio & Román, Concepción, 2010. "Determinants of Self-Employment Dynamics and their Implications on Entrepreneurial Policy Effectiveness," Revista Lecturas de Economía, Universidad de Antioquia, CIE, August.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • L26 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Entrepreneurship

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bpj:bejeap:v:10:y:2010:i:1:n:10. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyter.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.