entrepreneurship

This paper examines whether methodological deficiencies in the literature on discrimination in small business credit markets have a significant impact on the estimation of discrimination and provides a preliminary investigation into the causes of discrimination in these markets. The authors find substantial, statistically significant evidence of discrimination in loan approval against black-owned and Hispanic-owned businesses in 1998 with additional control variables, with a variety of different specifications, and with a simultaneous model of the application and loan-denial decisions.

This article summarizes what is known about the characteristics of entrepreneurial firms. Findings indicate that the number of jobs created by entrepreneurial firm births pales in comparison to the number created by expansions of existing firms. From 1997 to 2001 there were just 161,000 net jobs created in the United States from the net of firm births minus deaths, compared to a gain of nearly 9.6 million from the net of expansions minus contractions.

This paper suggests a different view of learning, where the entrepreneur can utilize her capacity to absorb and learn from the initial entrepreneurial experience, thereby augmenting her initial endowment of entrepreneurial skills. This leads to the theoretical prediction that those ex-entrepreneurs with characteristics more conducive to augmenting entrepreneurial abilities are more likely to become renascent entrepreneurs.

The purpose of this paper is to suggest two strategies in particular that facilitate entrepreneurial access to and absorption of external knowledge spillovers: the attraction of managers and directors with an academic background. Based on data on board composition of 295 high technology firms, the results clearly demonstrate the strong link between geographical proximity to research intense universities and board composition.

Is entrepreneurial talent entirely innate or do people learn to become entrepreneurs? the authors extend Lucass (1978) model of entrepreneurship to allow for the possibility that entrepreneurial talents may be acquired by watching other entrepreneurs in action. This model implies that areas with a greater number of firms have higher average firm productivity. The authors confirm this prediction using Italian firm level data.

The quantitative analysis shows that a low capital
tax encourages saving, increases the aggregate capital stock and production, decreases inequality and improves ex-ante welfare of both workers and entrepreneurs.

The impact of entrepreneurship on economic growth is far more pervasive than is generally acknowledged, according to the author. This article summarizes what is known about the characteristics of entrepreneurial firms.

The main finding of the paper is that the relationship between wealth and transition into entrepreneurship is positive but diminishing for the major part of the wealth distribution. Moreover, the relationship between wealth and entrepreneurship gets stronger as the models get less restricted with respect to wealth.

This paper addresses a central issue to migration the role of immigrants in entrepreneurial activity. In particular, the paper focuses on the determinants of the decision to become an entrepreneur for Turks living in Germany. The paper provides some important benchmarks, including the self-employment behavior of natives. The findings are that observable characteristics play different roles in the self-employment choice of immigrants and natives, whereas age-earnings profiles are similar for native and immigrant entrepreneurs.

The paper contributes to a recent empirical and theoretical literature that suggests that proprietors are an important group of stockholders and that entrepreneurial risk could therefore help explain time-varying risk premia on the aggregate stock market. The author uses the intertemporal budget constraint of the average U.S. household to derive a cointegrating relationship between consumption and income from proprietary and non-proprietary wealth.