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Horatio Alger Meets the Mobility Tables

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  • Holtz-Eakin, Douglas
  • Rosen, Harvey S
  • Weathers, Robert

Abstract

The question of how entrepreneurship relates to income mobility is cogent given the current public debate about the sources of income inequality and mobility in United States society. We examine how experience with entrepreneurship has affected an individual's place in the earnings distribution. Our basic tack is to follow individuals' positions in the income distribution over time, and to see how their mobility (or lack thereof) was affected by involvement with entrepreneurship. Our main finding is that for low-income individuals there is some merit to the notion that the self-employed moved ahead in the earnings distribution relative to those who remained wage earners. On the other hand, for those at the upper end of the earnings distribution, those who became self-employed often advanced less in the earnings distribution than their salaried counterparts. Copyright 2000 by Kluwer Academic Publishers

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Bibliographic Info

Article provided by Springer in its journal Small Business Economics.

Volume (Year): 14 (2000)
Issue (Month): 4 (June)
Pages: 243-74

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Handle: RePEc:kap:sbusec:v:14:y:2000:i:4:p:243-74

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Web page: http://www.springerlink.com/link.asp?id=100338

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  1. Brown, James N & Light, Audrey, 1992. "Interpreting Panel Data on Job Tenure," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 10(3), pages 219-57, July.
  2. Moshe Buchinsky & Jennifer Hunt, 1999. "Wage Mobility In The United States," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(3), pages 351-368, August.
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  4. Vincenzo Quadrini, 1997. "Entrepreneurship, saving and social mobility," Discussion Paper / Institute for Empirical Macroeconomics 116, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
  5. Aaberge, Rolf, et al, 2002. "Income Inequality and Income Mobility in the Scandinavian Countries Compared to the United States," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 48(4), pages 443-69, December.
  6. Palme, Mårten, 1994. "Earnings Mobility and Distribution: Comparing Statistical Models on Swedish Data," Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance 7, Stockholm School of Economics.
  7. 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.
  8. Holtz-Eakin, Douglas & Joulfaian, David & Rosen, Harvey S, 1994. "Sticking It Out: Entrepreneurial Survival and Liquidity Constraints," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(1), pages 53-75, February.
  9. Victor R. Fuchs, 1982. "Self-Employment and Labor Force Participation of Older Males," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 17(3), pages 339-357.
  10. Sarachek, Bernard, 1978. "American Entrepreneurs and the Horatio Alger Myth," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 38(02), pages 439-456, June.
  11. 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.
  12. Peter Gottschalk & Timothy M. Smeeding, 1997. "Cross-National Comparisons of Earnings and Income Inequality," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 35(2), pages 633-687, June.
  13. Bourguignon, F. & Morrisson, C. & Atkinson, A.B., 1991. "Empirical Studies of Earnings Mobility," DELTA Working Papers 91-14, DELTA (Ecole normale supérieure).
  14. Bruce D. Meyer, 1990. "Why Are There So Few Black Entrepreneurs?," NBER Working Papers 3537, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  15. Barton H. Hamilton, 2000. "Does Entrepreneurship Pay? An Empirical Analysis of the Returns to Self-Employment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(3), pages 604-631, June.
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Citations

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Cited by:
  1. Jed Kolko & David Neumark, 2010. "Does Local Business Ownership Insulate Cities from Economic Shocks?," NBER Chapters, in: Cities and Entrepreneurship National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  2. Lofstrom, Magnus, 2009. "Low-Skilled Immigrant Entrepreneurship," IZA Discussion Papers 4560, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  3. van Praag, Mirjam & Versloot, Peter H., 2007. "What Is the Value of Entrepreneurship? A Review of Recent Research," IZA Discussion Papers 3014, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  4. Robert Fairlie & Christopher Woodruff, 2005. "Mexican Entrepreneurship: A Comparison of Self-Employment in Mexico and the United States," NBER Working Papers 11527, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  5. Douhan, Robin & Henrekson, Magnus, 2007. "The Political Economy of Entrepreneurship: An Introduction," Working Paper Series 688, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
  6. Georgarakos, Dimitris & Tatsiramos, Konstantinos, 2009. "Immigrant Self-Employment: Does Intermarriage Matter?," IZA Discussion Papers 4350, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  7. Thor Olav Thoresen, 2009. "Income Mobility of Owners of Small Businesses when Boundaries between Occupations are Vague," CESifo Working Paper Series 2633, CESifo Group Munich.
  8. Karen E. Dynan & Douglas W. Elmendorf & Daniel E. Sichel, 2007. "The evolution of household income volatility," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2007-61, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
  9. Yannis Georgellis & Howard Wall, 2005. "Gender differences in self-employment," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 19(3), pages 321-342.
  10. Meh, Césaire A., 2008. "Business risk, credit constraints, and corporate taxation," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 32(9), pages 2971-3008, September.
  11. Georgarakos, Dimitris & Tatsiramos, Konstantinos, 2007. "Entrepreneurship and Survival Dynamics of Immigrants to the U.S. and their Descendants," IZA Discussion Papers 2792, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  12. Bruce, Donald & Schuetze, Herbert J., 2004. "The labor market consequences of experience in self-employment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(5), pages 575-598, October.
  13. Jason DeBacker & Bradley Heim & Vasia Panousi & Shanthi Ramnath & Ivan Vidangos, 2012. "The properties of income risk in privately held businesses," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2012-69, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).

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