IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/sbusec/v24y2005i1p63-78.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Winner’s Curse of Human Capital

Author

Listed:
  • Thomas Åstbro

    ()

  • Irwin Bernhardt

Abstract

We extend a model developed by Evans and Jovanovic (1989) to explain when start-ups are credit constrained. We show that the magnitude of the credit constraint is conditioned by the relative productivity of human capital in both wage work and self-employment. The effect of predicted household income on start-up capital is used to indicate the existence of financial constraint. Empirical analysis reveals that entrepreneurs with high human capital have both greater financial wealth and greater levels of start-up capital pointing to the endogenous nature of credit constraints. High human capital relaxes financial constraints, apparently due to greater productivity of human capital in wage work than in self-employment. Those who are the least likely to be credit constrained in self-employment are those that are least likely to switch into self-employment,and vice versa. Copyright Springer Science + Business Media, Inc. 2005

Suggested Citation

  • Thomas Åstbro & Irwin Bernhardt, 2005. "The Winner’s Curse of Human Capital," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 24(1), pages 63-78, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:sbusec:v:24:y:2005:i:1:p:63-78
    DOI: 10.1007/s11187-005-3097-y
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11187-005-3097-y
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Irwin Bernhardt, 1994. "Comparative Advantage in Self-Employment and Paid Work," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 27(2), pages 273-289, May.
    2. Douglas Holtz-Eakin & David Joulfaian & Harvey S. Rosen, 1994. "Entrepreneurial Decisions and Liquidity Constraints," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 25(2), pages 334-347, Summer.
    3. Evans, David S & Leighton, Linda S, 1989. "Some Empirical Aspects of Entrepreneurship," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(3), pages 519-535, June.
    4. 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.
    5. Blanchflower, D. & Oswald, A., 1990. "What Makes A Young Entrepreneur?," Papers 373, London School of Economics - Centre for Labour Economics.
    6. de Meza, David & Southey, Clive, 1996. "The Borrower's Curse: Optimism, Finance and Entrepreneurship," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 106(435), pages 375-386, March.
    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 808-827, August.
    8. Cressy, Robert, 1996. "Are Business Startups Debt-Rationed?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 106(438), pages 1253-1270, September.
    9. Stiglitz, Joseph E & Weiss, Andrew, 1981. "Credit Rationing in Markets with Imperfect Information," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(3), pages 393-410, June.
    10. Timothy Bates & Caren Grown, 1991. "Commercial Bank Lending Practices And The Development Of Black-Owned Construction Companies," Working Papers 91-9, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    11. Wolken, John D., 1998. ""New" data sources for research on small business finance," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 22(6-8), pages 1067-1076, August.
    12. Bates, Timothy, 1990. "Entrepreneur Human Capital Inputs and Small Business Longevity," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 72(4), pages 551-559, November.
    13. 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.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. OKAMURO, Hiroyuki & IKEUCHI, Kenta & MATSUDA, Naoko & TSUCHIYA, Ryuichiro, 2017. "Who wishes to be an entrepreneur and who prepares for that? : Evidence from statistical micro data in Japan over 30 years," CCES Discussion Paper Series 65, Center for Research on Contemporary Economic Systems, Graduate School of Economics, Hitotsubashi University.
    2. Klaesson , Johan & Karlsson, Charlie, 2014. "Market potential, start-up size and the survival of new firms," Working Paper Series in Economics and Institutions of Innovation 384, Royal Institute of Technology, CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies.
    3. Alex Coad & Julian Frankish & Paul Nightingale & Richard Roberts, 2014. "Business experience and start-up size: Buying more lottery tickets next time around?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 43(3), pages 529-547, October.
    4. Burchell, Brendan. & Coutts, Adam. & Hall, Edward. & Pye, Nick., 2015. "Self-employment programmes for young people : a review of the context, policies and evidence," ILO Working Papers 994898993402676, International Labour Organization.
    5. Masatoshi Kato, 2017. "Founders’ human capital and external knowledge sourcing: An absorptive capacity perspective for innovative start-ups," Discussion Paper Series 162, School of Economics, Kwansei Gakuin University, revised Jun 2017.
    6. Guido Buenstorf & Kristian Nielsen & Bram Timmermans, 2017. "Steve Jobs or No Jobs? Entrepreneurial activity and performance among Danish college dropouts and graduates," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 48(1), pages 179-197, January.
    7. repec:kap:sbusec:v:49:y:2017:i:4:d:10.1007_s11187-017-9853-y is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Simon Parker, 2014. "Who become serial and portfolio entrepreneurs?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 43(4), pages 887-898, December.
    9. Sebastian Ion CEPTUREANU & Eduard Gabriel CEPTUREANU, 2015. "Challenges And Barriers Of European Young Entrepreneurs," Management Research and Practice, Research Centre in Public Administration and Public Services, Bucharest, Romania, vol. 7(3), pages 34-58, September.
    10. Zając, Paweł, 2013. "The New Approach to Estimation of the Hazard Function in Business Demography on Example of Data from New Zealand," MPRA Paper 68600, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2013.
    11. Andrew A. Toole & Dirk Czarnitzki, 2009. "Exploring the Relationship Between Scientist Human Capital and Firm Performance: The Case of Biomedical Academic Entrepreneurs in the SBIR Program," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(1), pages 101-114, January.
    12. Masatoshi Kato & Yuji Honjo, 2015. "Entrepreneurial human capital and the survival of new firms in high- and low-tech sectors," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 25(5), pages 925-957, November.
    13. Robert W. Fairlie & Alicia M. Robb, 2007. "Why Are Black-Owned Businesses Less Successful than White-Owned Businesses? The Role of Families, Inheritances, and Business Human Capital," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 25, pages 289-323.
    14. Susan Marlow & Janine Swail, 2014. "Gender, risk and finance: why can't a woman be more like a man?," Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(1-2), pages 80-96, April.
    15. Seyit Cilasun & Burak Günalp, 2012. "An Empirical Analysis of the Average Plant Start-Up Size in Turkish Manufacturing Industries," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 40(4), pages 273-289, June.
    16. Tristan Boyer & Régis Blazy, 2014. "Born to be alive? The survival of innovative and non-innovative French micro-start-ups," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 42(4), pages 669-683, April.
    17. Barbara ERMINI, 2008. "Oltre Gibrat. Capitale umano dei fondatori, endogeneita' del finanziamento pubblico e crescita delle giovani imprese hi-tech italiane," Working Papers 322, Universita' Politecnica delle Marche (I), Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali.
    18. Juan A. Sanchis Llopis & José María Millán & Rui Baptista & Andrew Burke & Simon C. Parker & Roy Thurik, 2015. "Good times, bad times: entrepreneurship and the business cycle," Working Papers 1503, Department of Applied Economics II, Universidad de Valencia.
    19. Masatoshi Kato, 2016. "Internal R&D and External Knowledge Acquisition of Start-up Firms: Exploring the Role of Entrepreneurial Human Capital," Discussion Paper Series 145, School of Economics, Kwansei Gakuin University, revised Jul 2016.
    20. Brixy, Udo & Murmann, Martin, 2016. "The growth and human capital structure of new firms over the business cycle," IAB Discussion Paper 201642, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany].
    21. Sandra Gottschalk & Francis J. Greene & Bettina Müller, 2017. "The impact of habitual entrepreneurial experience on new firm closure outcomes," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 48(2), pages 303-321, February.
    22. Mahé, Clothilde, 2016. "Skills and entrepreneurship: Are return migrants 'Jacks-of-all-trades'?," MERIT Working Papers 071, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    23. Curtiss, Jarmila, 2012. "Determinants of Financial Capital Use: Review of theories and implications for rural businesses," Working Papers 122846, Factor Markets, Centre for European Policy Studies.
    24. Yuji Honjo & Masatoshi Kato & Hiroyuki Okamuro, 2014. "R&D investment of start-up firms: does founders’ human capital matter?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 42(2), pages 207-220, February.
    25. Arnab Bhattacharjee & Jean Bonnet & Nicolas Le Pape & Régis Renault, 2016. "Going into Business and Out of Business: The Role of Human Capital," Economics Working Paper Archive (University of Rennes 1 & University of Caen) 2016-04, Center for Research in Economics and Management (CREM), University of Rennes 1, University of Caen and CNRS.

    More about this item

    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:kap:sbusec:v:24:y:2005:i:1:p:63-78. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Sonal Shukla) or (Rebekah McClure). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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 CitEc recognized a reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 RePEc Author Service 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.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.