Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/217153 
Year of Publication: 
2019
Citation: 
[Journal:] Quantitative Economics [ISSN:] 1759-7331 [Volume:] 10 [Issue:] 2 [Publisher:] The Econometric Society [Place:] New Haven, CT [Year:] 2019 [Pages:] 643-691
Publisher: 
The Econometric Society, New Haven, CT
Abstract: 
We construct a structural model of entry into self-employment to evaluate the impact of policies supporting entrepreneurship. Previous work has recognized that workers may opt for self-employment due to the nonpecuniary benefits of running a business and not necessarily because they are good at it. Other literature has examined how socio-emotional skills, such as personality traits, affect selection into self-employment. We link these two lines of inquiry. The model we estimate captures three factors that affect selection into self-employment: credit constraints, relative earnings, and preferences. We incorporate personality traits by allowing them to affect sector-specific earnings as well as preferences. The estimated model reveals that the personality traits that make entrepreneurship profitable are not always the same traits driving people to open a business. This has important consequences for entrepreneurship policies. For example, subsidies for small businesses do not attract talented-but-reluctant entrepreneurs, but instead attract individuals with personality traits associated with strong preferences for running a business and low-quality business ideas.
Subjects: 
Entrepreneurship
personality
socioemotional skills
latent factors
JEL: 
J23
J24
J31
J32
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by-nc Logo
Document Type: 
Article

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