Entrepreneurship and Liquidity Constraints: Evidence from Sweden

Hurst and Lusardi (2004) use a specification with higher‐order polynomials to estimate the relationship between wealth and entrepreneurship. They find evidence against the existence of extensive liquidity constraints in the United States. In this paper, their approach is replicated on Swedish data. A positive relationship between wealth and entrepreneurship is found, which supports the liquidity constraints hypothesis. Alternative methods for handling the endogeneity problem and distinguishing between absolute decreasing risk aversion and liquidity constraints lend further support to the hypothesis. The analysis suggests that there exist liquidity constraints in Sweden, which are possibly more extensive than in the United States.     

Empirical Studies of Self‐Employment

This paper presents a review of empirical studies of self‐employment for the Australian, Canadian, Dutch, UK and US labour markets. Both cross‐sectional and longitudinal studies are analysed. Analyses using cross‐sectional data examine the propensity to be self‐employed at any one point in time, whereas longitudinal studies focus on the transition into self‐employment from wage/salary employment and the survival rate in this state over time. Various hypotheses advanced in the economics and sociology literatures on self‐employment are tested. These include the relationship between managerial ability and the propensity to be self‐employed and the impact of financial constraints on entry into self‐employment stressed in economic models of entrepreneurship, and the relationships between self‐employment choice and the nature of the work and group characteristics (e.g., ethnic enclaves) stressed in sociological models of entrepreneurship. The evidence shows that self‐employment outcomes are significantly affected by factors such as individual abilities, family background, occupational status, liquidity constraints and ethnic enclaves.     

社会关系再构建、职业阶层与农民工收入

在分析社会关系再构建和职业阶层与收入这一传统议题时,从两个方面对原有研究框架进行了扩充:一是在职业阶层的划分中纳入自雇经营;二是将社会关系再构建的作用分为了通过职业阶层影响收入的间接作用和对特定职业阶层就业者收入的直接作用两种。利用实地调查数据对提出的理论假设进行了检验。运用访谈资料对研究结果进行了解释并探讨了研究结果的政策含义。     

艺术设计专业学生自主创新创业实践研究——以湖南工业大学为例

本文以湖南工业大学为例,积极探索创新型应用人才培养方式,将企业工作流程引入课堂,在高校艺术设计专业开展实践性教学,并打造＂亲色时代＂手绘坊大学生创业孵化园,搭建开放创新设计实验室,让学生参与企业项目实践,有针对性地培养学生符合企业人才需求的专业技能,为地方本科院校更好地服务地方经济起到了一定的推进作用,同时,提出进一步提升艺术设计专业学生自主创新创业能力的设想,以期为地方本科院校艺术设计专业获得可持续发展带来了有益的启示。     

Life satisfaction and self-employment in different types of occupations

In this research, we investigate whether a positive relationship between life satisfaction and self-employment (versus paid employment) exists while simultaneously considering two occupational dimensions: white-collar versus blue-collar work and high-skilled versus low-skilled work. Using Eurobarometer data for a large number of European countries (2008–2012), our findings confirm that self-employed workers are more satisfied with their lives than paid employees are. A life satisfaction premium is also found when the self-employed and paid employees are compared within similar occupations in terms of collar type and skill level. Finally, self-employment can help to overcome low life satisfaction scores associated with blue-collar and low-skilled work.     

Does racial prejudice affect black entrepreneurship?: evidence exploiting spatial differences in prejudicial attitudes

This article explores the relationship between racial prejudice towards blacks and the black-white self-employment rate gap and provides the first direct empirical evidence that racial prejudice negatively impacts black self-employment, particularly in high start-up cost industries. To perform this analysis, I construct a measure of prejudicial attitudes using responses from the General Social Survey and estimate the relationship between self-employment and this index using the American Community Survey. I find that an amount of prejudice equal to the difference in least and most prejudiced census divisions increases the black-white self-employment rate gap in high start-up cost industries by 10.4–16.8%, depending upon whether parental self-employment is controlled for, and represents the entire impact of racial prejudice on the black-white self-employment rate gap. Additionally, racial prejudice widens the black-white self-employment income gap by between 6.4% and 8.2% in my full specification, dependent upon how income is measured. Evidence indicates that racial prejudice is causing blacks difficulty in financing their businesses. The results presented are robust to various modelling and data assumptions.     

Homeownership and new entrepreneurs: first empirical evidence of a bidirectional interaction

Literature linking housing and professional choices focuses on the supply side of the labour market (the search for a job as employee), thus considering the unemployment rate as the only measure of labour market outcomes. Indeed, the usually neglected link between homeownership and entrepreneurship is equally important for assessing labour market performance. This empirical article represents one of the first attempts to test the interplay between homeownership and (new) entrepreneurs. Effectively, using a panel data analysis in Italy, we find a first empirical evidence of a positive and bidirectional interaction between homeownership and new entrepreneurs (precisely, small businesses and the self-employed).     

中国就业岗位开发与创业扶持政策

本文根据对北京、上海和苏州三个试点城市及其他10余个城市实施积极就业政策的调查及国际比较，初步评估了中国实施积极就业政策尤其是针对国有企业下岗职工的创业扶持政策的成效和局限。文章认为，中国在特殊背景下实施积极就业政策是必要的，效果也是比较显著的，但随着劳动就业形势的变化，对积极就业政策的实施效果有必要进行认真的评估，并在此基础上进行适当的调整。     

Rent sharing before and after the wage bill

Many biases plague the analysis of whether employers share rents with their employees, unlike what is predicted by the competitive labour market model. Using a Portuguese matched employer-employee panel, this article is one of the first to address these biases in three complementary ways: (1) Controlling directly for the fact that firms that share more rents will, ceteris paribus, have lower net-of-wages profits. (2) Instrumenting profits via interactions between the exchange rate and the share of exports in firm's total sales. (3) Considering firm or firm/worker spell fixed effects and highlighting the role of downward wage rigidity. These approaches clarify conflicting findings in the literature and result, in our preferred specifications, in significant evidence of rent sharing (a Lester range of pay dispersion of 56%), also shown to be robust to a number of competitive interpretations.