The influence of residential segregation and its correlates on ethnic enterprise in urban areas

I develop and estimate a model of potential to enter self-employment based on individual and community-level factors. Of particular interest was the influence of racial residential segregation processes, and segregation's tendency to concentrate persons with similar demographic profiles in geographic space. It has been argued that segregation processes can also concentrate poverty and its associated social dislocations. An analysis of a database of 8917 households in four U.S. metropolitan areas revealed that two residential segregation processes (clustering and interaction) limit and enhance potential entry into self-employment for blacks, and provides a partial explanation for the longstanding gaps in white and black self-employment rates.