Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/110993 
Year of Publication: 
2007
Series/Report no.: 
Papers on Entrepreneurship, Growth and Public Policy No. 0705
Publisher: 
Max Planck Institute of Economics, Jena
Abstract: 
This paper investigates the dynamic interrelationship between self-employment and unemployment rates. On the one hand, unemployment rates may stimulate start-up activity of self-employed. On the other hand, higher rates of self-employment may indicate increased entrepreneurial activity reducing unemployment in subsequent periods. These two effects have resulted in considerable ambiguities about the interrelationship between unemployment and entrepreneurial activity. This paper introduces a two-equation vector autoregression model capable of reconciling these ambiguities and tests it for data of 23 OECD countries over the period 1974-2002. The empirical results confirm the two distinct relationships between unemploy-ment and self-employment, i.e. "refugee" and "entrepreneurial" effects. We also find that the "entrepreneu-rial" effects are considerably stronger than the "refugee" effects.
Subjects: 
entrepreneurship
Gibrat's Law
self-employment
unemployment
JEL: 
J23
J64
L26
L53
M13
O11
older Version: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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