Return migration and self-employment: is there a ‘jack-of-all-trades’ effect?[The intergenerational transmission of liberal professions]

With reference to Lazear’s jack-of-all-trades hypothesis, I examine whether migrants are more likely to be self-employed upon return because of the diverse work experience they gained abroad. The endogeneity between migration, human capital investment, and self-employment is addressed by exploiting exogenous cohort and regional variation in the decision to migrate in the context of Egypt, and parental labour market information. Return migrants’ higher propensity to be self-employed is shown to proceed from participating in significantly more occupations over their work history than non-migrants. In line with Lazear’s framework, estimates confirm that entrepreneurship can be learnt, and that exposure to multiple occupations matters for entrepreneurship.