We estimate Frisch elasticity in a labor market with high job turnover. In a context where only around 18% of the employed labor force has formal and stable jobs, we perform a fixed effects estimation as proposed by MaCurdy (1981) with a Heckman correction for selection into unemployment. We...

Standard observed characteristics explain only part of the differences between men and women in education choices and labor market trajectories. Using an experiment to derive students' levels of overconfidence, and preferences for competitiveness and risk, this paper investigates whether these...

Increasing mothers' labor supply is a key policy challenge in many OECD countries. Germany recently introduced a generous parental benefit that allows for strong consumption smoothing after childbirth and, by taking into account opportunity costs of childbearing, incentivizes working women to...

This paper investigates whether self-employed households use consumer loans – in particular instalment loans and overdrafts – to finance business activities. Controlling for financial and non-financial household variables we show that self-employed households particularly use personal...

Based on the notion that entrepreneurship is a 'local event,' the literature argues that self-employed workers and entrepreneurs are 'rooted' in place. This paper tests the 'residential rootedness'-hypothesis of self-employment by examining for Germany and the UK whether the self-employed are...

We assess the relevance of formal education for the productivity of the self-employed and distinguish between opportunity entrepreneurs, who voluntarily pursue a business opportunity, and necessity entrepreneurs, who lack alternative employment options. We expect differences in the returns to...

Using a large data set for Germany, we show that both the raw and the unexplained gender earnings gap are higher in self-employment than in paid employment. Applying an Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition, more than a quarter of the difference in monthly self-employment earnings can be traced back to...

In the 1980s, many U.S. cities initiated programs reserving a proportion of government contracts for minority-owned businesses. The staggered introduction of these set-aside programs is used to estimate their impacts on the self-employment and employment rates of African-American men. Black...

This paper focuses on the determinants of self-employment among rural to urban migrants in China. Two self-selection mechanisms are analysed: the first relates to the manner in which migrants choose self-employment or paid work based on the potential gains from either type of employment; the...

We hypothesize that individuals with a larger social-family network are more likely to choose self-employment. We test this hypothesis using data on temporary rural-urban migrants in China. The size of a migrant's social-family network is measured by the number of relatives and friends this...