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Too Cold to Venture There? January Temperature and Immigrant Self-Employment across the United States

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  • Lee, Jun Yeong
  • Winters, John

Abstract

Immigrant entrepreneurs are critical to regional and national economies. Immigrants in the USA have higher self-employment rates than natives, and immigrants have made outsized contributions as founders of numerous highly successful firms. However, we document that immigrant self-employment rates vary considerably across areas of the USA. Our main measure is the percentage of immigrant workers in an area who are self-employed; i.e., the self-employment rate for the foreign-born. Areas with colder winter temperatures have especially low self-employment rates among their immigrant populations compared to other areas of the USA. This relationship holds for numerous sub-samples of immigrants and is not driven by any particular group. The relationship persists after controlling for numerous individual and local area characteristics. Immigrant entrepreneurs appear to be especially forward-looking and responsive to warmer January temperature as a locational amenity. The results have important implications about the location choices of immigrant entrepreneurs.

Suggested Citation

  • Lee, Jun Yeong & Winters, John, 2021. "Too Cold to Venture There? January Temperature and Immigrant Self-Employment across the United States," ISU General Staff Papers 202112131848540000, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:isu:genstf:202112131848540000
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
    • L26 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Entrepreneurship
    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population

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