IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cje/issued/v52y2019i1p33-57.html

Politics and entrepreneurship in the US

Author

Listed:
  • Louis-Philippe Beland
  • Bulent Unel

Abstract

There is a strong belief that Republicans are more pro-business than Democrats. In this paper, we investigate the causal impact of partisan allegiance of governors (Republican or Democratic) on entrepreneurial activity by exploiting random variation in close gubernatorial elections in 50 states over the last three decades in a regression discontinuity design. We find that Republican governors are no different than Democratic governors in their effects on entrepreneurship. Our findings are robust to several sensitivity checks.

Suggested Citation

  • Louis-Philippe Beland & Bulent Unel, 2019. "Politics and entrepreneurship in the US," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 52(1), pages 33-57, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:cje:issued:v:52:y:2019:i:1:p:33-57
    DOI: 10.1111/caje.12365
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/caje.12365
    Download Restriction: access restricted to subscribers
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/caje.12365?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

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Bulent Unel, 2025. "Effects of immigration on native entrepreneurship in the US: an analysis of self-employment over 1980–2018," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 64(2), pages 755-773, February.
    2. Louis-Philippe Beland & Abel Brodeur & Taylor Wright, 2023. "The short-term economic consequences of COVID-19: Exposure to disease, remote work and government response," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 18(3), pages 1-32, March.
    3. Louis‐Philippe Beland & Abel Brodeur & Derek Mikola & Taylor Wright, 2022. "The short‐term economic consequences of COVID‐19: Occupation tasks and mental health in Canada," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(S1), pages 214-247, February.
    4. Niklas Potrafke, 2018. "Government ideology and economic policy-making in the United States—a survey," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 174(1), pages 145-207, January.
    5. Louis-Philippe Beland & Abel Brodeur & Taylor Wright, 2020. "COVID-19, Stay-at-Home Orders and Employment: Evidence from CPS Data," Carleton Economic Papers 20-04, Carleton University, Department of Economics, revised 19 May 2020.
    6. Patel, Pankaj C., 2023. "Automation vulnerability, voting, and self-employment," Journal of Business Venturing Insights, Elsevier, vol. 19(C).
    7. Ma, Jiantao & Sarker, Anindo & Unel, Bulent, 2025. "Does credit expansion encourage small businesses to incorporate? Evidence from US bank deregulations," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 230(C).
    8. Louis-Philippe Beland & Oluwatobi Fakorede & Derek Mikola, 2020. "Short-Term Effect of COVID-19 on Self-Employed Workers in Canada," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 46(S1), pages 66-81, July.
    9. Niklas Potrafke, 2017. "Government Ideology and Economic Policy-Making in the United States," CESifo Working Paper Series 6444, CESifo.
    10. Keita, Sekou & Mandon, Pierre, 2018. "Give a fish or teach fishing? Partisan affiliation of U.S. governors and the poverty status of immigrants," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 65-96.
    11. Cohle, Zachary & Ortega, Alberto, 2022. "Life of the party: The polarizing effect of foreign direct investment," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    12. Areendam Chanda & Bulent Unel, 2021. "Do attitudes toward risk taking affect entrepreneurship? Evidence from second-generation Americans," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 26(4), pages 385-413, December.
    13. Lucas, David S., 2024. "The effect of regime change on entrepreneurship: A real options approach with evidence from US gubernatorial elections," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 39(4).
    14. Ortega, Alberto, 2020. "State partisanship and higher education," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    15. Unel, Bulent & Upton, Gregory B., 2023. "Oil & gas induced economic fluctuations and self-employment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    16. Louis-Philippe Beland, 2016. "Political Parties and Economic Outcomes. A Review," ifo DICE Report, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 14(01), pages 47-54, May.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • 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:cje:issued:v:52:y:2019:i:1:p:33-57. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Prof. Werner Antweiler (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ceaaaea.html .

    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.