Using confidential microdata from the U.S. Census Bureau, we investigate the performance of female-owned businesses making comparisons to male-owned businesses. Using regression estimates and a decomposition technique, we explore the role that human capital, especially through prior work...

Only a few large, nationally-representative datasets include information on both the owner and the business. We briefly describe several of the most respected and up-to-date sources of data on entrepreneurs, the self-employed, and small businesses. More information including estimates of recent...

Using confidential and restricted-access microdata from the U.S. Census Bureau, we find that Asian-owned businesses are 16.9 percent less likely to close, 20.6 percent more likely to have profits of at least $10,000, and 27.2 percent more likely to hire employees than whiteowned businesses in...

Using confidential microdata from the Characteristics of Business Owners survey, we examine why African American–owned businesses lag substantially behind white-owned businesses in sales, profits, employment, and survival. Black business owners are much less likely than white owners to have...

An important finding in the rapidly growing literature on self-employment is that the probability of self-employment is substantially higher among the children of business owners than among the children of non-business owners. Using data from the confidential and restrictedaccess Characteristics...