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Does College Education Promote Entrepreneurship in China?

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  • Tianshu Chu

    (Southwestern University of Finance and Economics)

  • Qiang Wen

    (Xiamen University)

Abstract

There is no consensus on the impact of education on entrepreneurial choice in both theory and empirics. China’s Higher Education Expansion (HEE) policy initiated in 1999 provides us a unique opportunity to identity the causal relationship between college education and entrepreneurship by exploiting the Fuzzy Regression Discontinuity Design (FRDD) approach. In this paper, we use the China Household Income Project (CHIP) 2013 database, finding that China’s HEE policy significantly increases the probability of obtaining college education by 12%. There is suggestive evidence that college education decreases overall and self-employed-type of entrepreneurial choices, but increases boss-type activities; none of the coefficients are precisely estimated, though. Our results are robust to different inference approaches.

Suggested Citation

  • Tianshu Chu & Qiang Wen, 2019. "Does College Education Promote Entrepreneurship in China?," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 40(4), pages 463-486, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:jlabre:v:40:y:2019:i:4:d:10.1007_s12122-019-09293-0
    DOI: 10.1007/s12122-019-09293-0
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    4. Huang, Bin & Tani, Massimiliano & Zhu, Yu, 2021. "Does higher education make you more entrepreneurial? Causal evidence from China," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 543-558.
    5. Isaac Kofi Mensah & Guohua Zeng & Chuanyong Luo & Zhiwu Xiao & Mengqiu Lu, 2021. "Exploring the Predictors of Chinese College Students’ Entrepreneurial Intention," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(3), pages 21582440211, July.
    6. Yilin Zhou & Hongbo Li & Fakhar Shahzad, 2021. "Does College Education Promote Entrepreneurship Education in China?," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(3), pages 21582440211, July.
    7. Youlu Zhang & Li Zhang & Fulian Li & Liqian Deng & Jiaoli Cai & Linyue Yu, 2022. "Offspring Education and Parents’ Health Inequality in China: Evidence from Spillovers of Education Reform," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(4), pages 1-26, February.
    8. Cheng, Zhiming & Smyth, Russell, 2021. "Education and migrant entrepreneurship in urban China," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 506-529.
    9. Wolters, Dominic, 2021. "An Analysis of the Impact of Income Tax Changes on the Rate of Business Creation in the United States, 1992-2018," Undergraduate Research Papers 337404, University of Minnesota, Department of Applied Economics.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    College education; Entrepreneurship; Higher education expansion policy; Fuzzy regression discontinuity design;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I25 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Economic Development
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • L26 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Entrepreneurship

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