This paper investigates the effect of entrepreneurs' pesonal income tax situations on the growth rate of their enterprises. We analyze the personal income tax returns of a large number of sole proprietors before and after the Tax Reform Act of 1986 and determine how the substantial reductions in...

Worldwide, dependency ratios are forecast to increase dramatically in the next 50 years. A great deal of attention has been devoted to understanding the changes in fiscal policies that "must" take place to accommodate these changes. In contrast, less effort has been concentrated on studying the...

In this paper we analyze microdata to explore differences in the rates at which American and German workers leave their salaried jobs to become self-employed. We document that the rate of self-employment is lower in Germany than in the U.S., and the rate of transition from wage-earning to...

Popular and policy discussions have focused extensively on "entrepreneurship." While entrepreneurship is often viewed from the perspective of the individual's benefits--an increase in standard of living, flexibility in hours, and so forth--much of the policy interest derives from the presumption...

One criticism of the estate tax is that it prevents the owners of family businesses from passing their enterprises onto their children. The problem is that it may be difficult to pay estate taxes without liquidating the business. A natural question is why individuals with such concerns do not...