Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

The Persistence of Self-Employment Across Borders: New Evidence on Legal Immigrants to the United States

Contents:

Author Info

  • Randall K.Q Akee

    () (University of California, Los Angeles and IZA)

  • David A Jaeger

    () (City University of New York Graduate Center, University of Cologne, and NBER)

  • Konstantinos Tatsiramos

    () (University of Leicester and IZA)

Abstract

Using recently-available data from the New Immigrant Survey, we find that previous self-employment experience in an immigrant's country of origin is an important determinant of self-employment status in the U.S., increasing the probability of being self-employed by about 7 percent relative to an unconditional self-employment probability of about 10 percent. This effect is statistically significant and quantitatively important, being equivalent to at least 7 years of U.S.-based education. Our results improve on the previous literature by measuring home-country self-employment directly rather than relying on proxy measures.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/Pubs/EB/2013/Volume33/EB-13-V33-I1-P12.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Article provided by AccessEcon in its journal Economics Bulletin.

Volume (Year): 33 (2013)
Issue (Month): 1 ()
Pages: 126-137

as in new window
Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-12-00727

Contact details of provider:

Related research

Keywords: Self-employment; entrepreneurship; New Immigrant Survey;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:

References

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
as in new window
  1. Heckman, James J, 1974. "Shadow Prices, Market Wages, and Labor Supply," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 42(4), pages 679-94, July.
  2. Lofstrom, Magnus, 1999. "Labor Market Assimilation and the Self-Employment Decision of Immigrant Entrepreneurs," IZA Discussion Papers 54, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  3. Julie Zissimopoulos & Lynn A. Karoly, 2003. "Transitions to Self-Employment at Older Ages: The Role of Wealth, Health, Health Insurance, and Other Factors," Working Papers 135, RAND Corporation Publications Department.
  4. Evans, David S & Leighton, Linda S, 1989. "Some Empirical Aspects of Entrepreneurship," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(3), pages 519-35, June.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. 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 808-27, August.
  8. Bates, Timothy, 1995. "Self-employment entry across industry groups," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 143-156, March.
  9. George J. Borjas, 1986. "The Self-Employment Experience of Immigrants," NBER Working Papers 1942, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  10. Edward P. Lazear, 2004. "Balanced Skills and Entrepreneurship," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 208-211, May.
  11. Blanchflower, David G & Meyer, Bruce D, 1994. " A Longitudinal Analysis of the Young Self-Employed in Australia and the United States," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 6(1), pages 1-19, February.
  12. Lee, Lung-Fei, 1978. "Unionism and Wage Rates: A Simultaneous Equations Model with Qualitative and Limited Dependent Variables," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 19(2), pages 415-33, June.
  13. 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.
  14. George J. Borjas, 1986. "The Self-Employment Experience of Immigrants," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 21(4), pages 485-506.
  15. James J. Heckman, 1981. "Heterogeneity and State Dependence," NBER Chapters, in: Studies in Labor Markets, pages 91-140 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-12-00727

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (John P. Conley).

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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

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