Unemployment Benefits and Entrepreneurship

Several recent empirical papers show that unemployment benefits crowd out nascent entrepreneurs. In the present paper provide theoretical support in favour of this interesting result. Over fairly general preference patterns we obtain a measure of the opportunity cost of entrepreneurs in the presence of unemployment benefits and derive conditions under which potential entrepreneurs suffer as unemployment benefits rise. We formulate a clear transmission mechanism in the labour market that links unemployment benefits to occupational choice for a group of risk‐averse individuals.     

Global labour markets,return, and onward migration

Abstract. There is increasing evidence that international migration is characterized by frequent return and onward migration. This has important consequences for the contribution of immigrants to the economy of the host country. Lack of longitudinal data has prevented much analysis of how frequently international migration involves a sequence of location decisions or how long the typical migrant stays in a host country. A newly available longitudinal data set covering all immigrants to Canada since 1980 provides the opportunity to address these issues. The results show that a large fraction of male immigrants who are of working age, especially among skilled workers and entrepreneurs, are highly internationally mobile.     

Self-employment,financial development,and well-being: Evidence from China,Russia, and Ukraine

This study investigates the association between financial development and entrepreneurs’ well-being in China, Ukraine, and Russia. We find that Chinese and Russian entrepreneurs have a higher level of well-being, while Ukrainian self-employed individuals have more dissatisfaction. The link between financial development and the utility of entrepreneurs varies as well. The utility differences between the self-employed and paid workers in Russia reduce with financial development and the effect is stronger for job satisfaction. However, financial development barely correlates with Ukrainian entrepreneurs’ happiness while having no correlation with life satisfaction of Chinese self-employed. Further investigation suggests that the financial development – entrepreneurial utility association works through both monetary and non-monetary channels.     

Entrepreneurial talent, occupational choice, and trickle up policies

We study market inefficiencies and policy remedies when agents choose their occupations, and entrepreneurial talent is subject to private information. Untalented entrepreneurs depress the returns to entrepreneurship because of adverse selection. The severity of this problem depends on the outside option of entrepreneurs, which is working for wages. This links credit, product and labor markets. A rise in wages reduces the adverse selection problem. These multimarket interactions amplify productivity shocks and may generate multiple equilibria. If it is impossible to screen entrepreneurs then all agents unanimously support a tax on entrepreneurs that drives out the less talented ones. However, if screening is possible, e.g., if wealthy entrepreneurs can provide collateral for their loans, then wealthy entrepreneurs do not support surplus enhancing taxes.     

Adverse selection in credit markets and regressive profit taxation

In many countries, taxes on businesses are less progressive than labor income taxes. This paper provides a justification for this pattern based on adverse selection that entrepreneurs face in credit markets. Individuals choose between becoming entrepreneurs or workers and differ in their skill in both of these occupations. I find that endogenous cross-subsidization in the credit market equilibrium results in excessive (insufficient) entry of low-skilled (high-skilled) agents into entrepreneurship. This gives rise to a corrective role for differential taxation of entrepreneurial profits and labor income. In particular, a profit tax that is regressive relative to taxes on labor income restores the efficient occupational choice.     

女性社会网络关系与创业融资劣势

随着“大众创业、万众创新”相关政策深入实施,利用互联网众筹等新融资平台为创业团队募集资金,已成为创业融资的重要手段。然而,在网络众筹平台上,女性领导者主持的创业项目在数量、融资额度或成功机会上均远低于男性领导的创业项目。女性是否存在互联网创业融资瓶颈,何种原因导致上述劣势存在,成为理论界亟需解决的重要问题。为此,从社会嵌入理论出发,基于互联网众筹平台1 517个创业项目,利用PSM及OLS方法研究发现,女性在社会网络相关条件强度和社会网络对创业融资影响两方面都存在创业劣势,进而确定了女性创业者融资劣势的来源,并提出了相关建议。     

世代效应:民营企业家群体的阶层地位变迁研究

阶层地位感知是影响民营企业家经营决策的重要因素,然而当前仍缺乏对其阶层地位感知形成机制的解释。从市场化转型历史背景出发,本文认为民营企业家阶层地位感知受其创业时特定历史情境的影响,并会通过世代效应长期共享、强化这一认知模式。基于五次中国私营企业抽样调查数据,具体考察1992年前后两个不同时期创业的民营企业家群体地位感知差异来检验世代效应。结果表明:与市场经济体制确立之前(1992年前)创业的民营企业家群体相比,市场经济体制确立之后(1992年后)创业的民营企业家群体地位感知相对较高。同时,进一步异质性检验发现,对于无体制内经历和经济力量较强的民营企业家群体,市场化转型对其阶层地位感知的提升作用更强。通过聚焦于中国市场化转型的历史变迁进程,本文为深化民营企业家阶层地位感知的认识提供了宏观历史视角解释。     

A study on the role of guanxi in entrepreneurship and employment

This paper examines the role of guanxi in influencing the decision of an individual to be an entrepreneur facing a risky technology or to become a worker facing an unemployment rate. Individuals are assumed to vary in terms of the strength of their established guanxi that could be utilized either to lower the set-up cost as entrepreneurs or to secure jobs as workers. Compared with the case where guanxi can only be used to reduce the individual's set-up cost to become an entrepreneur, it is shown that if guanxi can also help a worker find a job, then whether the employment rate might be improved or worsened will depend on the absolute risk aversion that is increasing or decreasing in income.     

EDUCATIONAL GENDER INEQUALITY AND INVERTED U‐SHAPED FERTILITY DYNAMICS*

In this article, we examine the dynamic interactions between narrowing educational gender inequality and inverted U‐shaped fertility dynamics by constructing a two‐period overlapping generations model that includes both sexes. In the early stage of development, neither male subjects nor female subjects are educated. At some period, male subjects begin to be educated, whereas female subjects remain uneducated. At this stage, the male subjects' education levels, as well as the fertility rates, gradually increase over time. Fertility achieves a peak just before the onset of the female subject's education. Subsequently, fertility steadily decreases over time. Gender inequality in education also decreases during periods of fertility decline.     

Training,human capital,and gender gaps in entrepreneurial performance

In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, policymakers have been increasingly striving to support female entrepreneurship as a possible growth driver. This paper contributes to reconciling mixed findings in the literature on the effectiveness of entrepreneurial training with an analysis that links training and human capital, including tertiary education and non-cognitive skills, with gender gaps in entrepreneurial performance in Africa. We have found that while financial literacy training directly benefits men, it does not raise the sales levels of women entrepreneurs. Instead, tertiary education has a direct positive link with the performance of women. Consistent with our theoretical model where different skills are complements, tertiary education can act as a channel that makes training effective. Regarding non-cognitive skills, evidence shows that women entrepreneurs who are tenacious achieve stronger sales performance. Our results underscore the importance of including tertiary education and entrepreneurial training programs focused on a balanced set of skills, including non-cognitive skills, among policies for women entrepreneurs.     

技术型创业者创造力特征对企业绩效的影响

“双创”国家战略鼓励不同类型的创业者参与创新创业活动,实现中国经济的创新驱动。作为将自有创新成果商业化的创业群体,技术型创业者不仅具备一般创业者特征,还拥有显著的创造力特征。已有研究表明,创业者的技术特征对企业绩效具有重要影响,但缺少技术型创业者的创造力水平对创业企业绩效影响机制的探讨。鉴于此,以2020年深圳证券交易所创业板上市的企业为样本,研究技术型创业者创造力特征对创业企业绩效的影响。多元线性回归分析结果表明,技术型创业者创造力水平与创业企业绩效呈正相关关系;在中型企业中,技术型创业者创造力水平对创业企业绩效具有显著正向影响,而在大型企业和小微企业中,技术型创业者创造力水平对企业创业绩效的影响则不显著或较小。     

创业者因“我能”而拼凑：创业震荡的调节效应

遵循自我一致性理论和认知评价理论，引入创业目标清晰度和创业震荡（消极创业震荡和积极创业震荡），揭示创业自我效能感影响创业拼凑的内在作用机制和边界条件。基于297名创业者回溯式调查数据进行实证检验，结果发现：创业自我效能感既能直接促进创业拼凑，又能通过创业目标清晰度的中介作用产生间接促进作用；积极创业震荡能够削弱创业自我效能感对创业拼凑的驱动效应，并且通过创业目标清晰度的中介作用实现；消极创业震荡的调节效应不显著。研究结论部分解释了“面对同样的资源短缺情境，为何有些创业者积极开展创业拼凑，但有些创业者却无所事事”和“积极创业者在何种情境下会开展更多创业拼凑”等问题。     

Happily Ever After? A Study of Job Satisfaction in Australia

The present paper investigates issues of job satisfaction and gender. In particular, the finding that women are significantly happier in work than their male counterparts is examined. To shed light on this issue, smaller subgroups of the total sample are analysed and more subjective variables (in addition to more traditional objective variables) are incorporated. It is found that differences in reported job satisfaction are more pronounced when looking at individuals with lower levels of education in lower skilled jobs. The determinants of job satisfaction for men and women in this group are significantly different; this was not found to be the case when looking at higher skilled, higher educated individuals. Women in this latter group exhibit similar (i.e. lower) levels of satisfaction to their male counterparts. It is conjectured that this result is due to differences in expectations of work among men and women and also among women themselves.     

Entrepreneurial competition and its impact on the aggregate economy

This paper models entrepreneurship as the entrepreneur’s information processing activity in order to predict changes in demand and reallocate resources. The results show that allocative efficiency—and therefore aggregate productivity—increases through intensified competition by entrepreneurs grasping at opportunities. This fierce competition leads to price reductions that result in the improvement of measured aggregate productivity. The price reduction also forces relatively less able entrepreneurs to become workers. As resources are then dealt with only by relatively talented entrepreneurs, this selection effect also increases aggregate productivity. The paper also discusses how the selection effect influences the distribution of firm size.      

双重委托—代理视角下的金融中介、金融加速器与经济波动的研究

本文在BGG模型基础上,建立了包含企业、金融中介、投资者的双重委托—代理模型,将金融中介纳入信贷市场摩擦的分析框架内。分析了金融中介自身受信贷约束时,其资产净值变化对经济产生的金融加速器效应。得出在双重委托代理的信用契约下,企业外部融资溢价不但受自身资产净值的影响,还受金融中介资产净值的影响。各种外部冲击通过信贷市场中金融中介的传导对经济波动造成进一步放大的效应,经济波动的金融加速器效应在考虑金融中介资产净值的影响后得到了增强。     

Status Incentives and Corporate Giving: Evidence From China's Political Reform On Private Enterprises

In this paper, we estimate the effect of status incentives on charitable giving by exploiting a natural experiment during China's political reform in 2002 that significantly improved the status of private entrepreneurs and their enterprises. We find that exogenous changes in social, political and economic status of private entrepreneurs led to a significant increase in the corporate giving of their privately owned firms. The findings are robust when we use different samples of the data and when we control for a large set of entrepreneurs and firm characteristics in the regression analysis.     

Occupational choice and entrepreneurship: effects of R&D subsidies on economic growth

Most R&D-based growth models fail to explicitly account for the role of entrepreneurs in economic growth. By contrast, this study accounts for this factor and constructs an overlapping-generations model that includes entrepreneurial innovation and the occupational choice of becoming an entrepreneur or a worker. For the role of entrepreneurs, even a policy intended to encourage innovation can negatively affect economic growth. For the effect of such policies, I focus on the role of R&D subsidies. I show that while R&D subsidies promote entrepreneurs’ R&D activities, they increase workers’ wages by boosting labor demand. Thus, it is more attractive to be a worker, which reduces the number of entrepreneurs. Subsidies can have both a negative and positive effect on growth, which results in an inverted U-shaped relationship between R&D subsidies and growth. In addition, a growth-maximizing R&D subsidy rate exists, although this rate is too high to maximize the welfare level of any one generation. When individuals are heterogeneous in their abilities, R&D subsidies reduce intra-generational inequalities.     

New product and service launching in new ventures: a multilevel approach to innovation antecedents

Macro-economic policies such as public financing seek to push the development and introduction of innovations; however, entrepreneurs also need support in their ‘day-to-day’ activities to improve their capability to launch innovations. As this micro-level perspective is rarely studied, we analyze both the micro and macro levels by examining the effects of the entrepreneurs’ individual intention to innovate and public financing. Additionally, we include the meso level, representing entrepreneurs’ network. Entrepreneurs are embedded in social spheres in which they capture resources and identify opportunities. But not all entrepreneurs are equally well supported, and some tend to be completely isolated. We thus focus on multilevel factors explaining new product or service launching in new ventures. Drawing on data of 48,251 French new ventures, we reveal that innovation intention and public financing positively impact new ventures’ product and service innovation launching, while entrepreneurs’ isolation has a negative effect. We also highlight two interaction effects that enhance the multilevel effects of innovation antecedents.     

宗教信仰、政治身份与企业投资偏好

文章运用企业家宗教信仰的直接调查数据,考察了企业家的个人宗教信仰对企业投资活动的影响。研究发现,相对于研发型投资,有宗教信仰的企业家偏好于风险相对较小的关系型投资;不同类型的宗教信仰对企业投资偏好具有不同的影响,笃信东方宗教的企业家相对于笃信西方宗教的企业家更加偏好于关系型投资;企业家的宗教信仰对投资偏好的影响因企业家是否具有政治身份而有所不同,相对于有政治身份的企业家,没有政治身份的企业家的宗教信仰会更加显著地正向影响关系型投资,表明政治身份可能会弱化宗教信仰在关系型投资中的作用。     

Causal effects of sex preference on sex-blind and sex-selective child avoidance and substitution across birth years: Evidence from the Japanese year of the fire horse

This paper examines the effect of a short-term change in preference for male offspring on couples' childbearing and child-avoidance behaviors. We exploit a natural experiment in Japan in which girls born in a specific astrological year are regarded as less desirable. We relate this superstition to an economic model of child avoidance. We measure the relative importance of sex-selective and sex-blind child avoidance responses nationwide and across geographic areas and the degree of substitutability of children across birth years in Japan in 1846, 1906, and 1966, and we examine how these responses interacted with the economic and social development of Japan over this period.