Even as self-employment continues to increase, policymakers remain largely unaware of this trend and fail to see it as an opportunity for addressing enduring joblessness. In part, this is explained by limited data on the self-employed and by widespread perceptions that returns to self-employment...

We compare the returns to human capital in rural areas with those in urban areas, and across the different regions of the US. A key finding is that these returns are considerably lower in rural than in urban areas. Furthermore, failure to correct for spatial dependence bias produces an...

Despite the surging interest in entrepreneurship as an economic development strategy, studies of the independent relationship between proprietorship formations and job growth are virtually non-existent. We find that self-employment or proprietorship rates are associated with faster job growth in...