Universität Bonn

Department of Economics

Ross Levine - Berkeley Haas

“Selection into Entrepreneurship and Self-Employment”, together with Yona Rubinstein

Abstract

We study the effects of ability and liquidity constraints on entrepreneurship. We develop a three sector Roy model that differentiates between entrepreneurs and other self-employed to address puzzling gaps that have emerged between theory and evidence on entry into entrepreneurship. The model predicts—and the data confirm—that entrepreneurs are positively selected on highly remunerated cognitive and non-cognitive human capital skills, but other self-employed are negatively selected on those same abilities; entrepreneurs are positively selected on collateral, but other self-employed are not; and entrepreneurship is procyclical, but self-employment is countercyclical.

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