The Wealth Effect on New Business Startups in a Developing Economy

The paper tests for nonlinearities in the wealth effect on self-employment, as can arise from startup costs or liquidity constraints. Using both nonparametric and parametric methods, we show that the relationship between the probability of a return migrant to Tunisia starting up a business and the stock of his savings repatriated at return is concave for almost the entire range of our data, though we find weak evidence of a convex relationship at very low wealth levels. Our results suggest that the aggregate self-employment rate is an increasing function of aggregate wealth, but a decreasing function of wealth inequality. Copyright (c) The London School of Economics and Political Science 2006.