We examine trends in self-employment among white and black men from 1910 to 1990 using Census and CPS microdata. Self-employment rates fell over most of the century and then started to rise after 1970. For white men, we find that the decline was due to declining rates within industries, but was...

A rapidly growing literature examines the impact of immigrants on the labor market outcomes of native-born Americans. However, the impact of immigration on natives in self-employment has not been examined, despite the over-representation of immigrants in that sector. We first present a new...

Previous studies tend to find that immigration has a weak negative effect on the employment and earnings of native-born workers. These studies generally overlook the effect of immigration on an important sector of the labor force, the self-employed. Anecdotal evidence suggests that immigrants,...

The experience of Washington State provides a natural setting to examine the effects of the unemployment insurance payroll tax on layoffs, employment, and wages. During the 13-year period from 1972 through 1984, all employers in Washington paid the same unemployment insurance (UI) tax rate....

In this paper we theoretically and empirically examine the common, but previously unexamined, case of a firm-varying tax that is used to finance a fringe benefit. While we use data from the experience-rated unemployment insurance (UI) system, it is important to realize that differential...

We examine the extent to which unemployment insurance (UI) insures workers against unforeseen events or subsidizes firms and workers engaged in temporary layoffs. Our main source of data is a five-year panel of UI administrative records from five states. While most claimants receive UI only once...