Author: Chunbei Wang

Publisher:

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13:

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This dissertation contributes to the understanding of self-employment among Hispanics and Immigrants. The first essay focuses on the most disadvantaged subgroup of Hispanics - Mexican-Americans, and analyzes causes of their low self-employment rate by studying self-employment entry and exits utilizing panel data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). Our results indicate that differences in education and financial wealth are important factors in explaining differences in entrepreneurship across groups. Importantly, we analyze self-employment by recognizing heterogeneity in business ownership across industries and show that a classification of firms by human and financial capital "intensiveness", or entry barriers, is effective in explaining differences in entrepreneurship across ethnic groups. The second essay focuses on immigrants and the impact of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on their self-employment decisions. Using the CPS Basic Monthly Data 2000 to 2005, we find interesting results. We show that there exist significant heterogeneous impacts of 9/11 on the self-employment decisions of immigrants; while immigrants from Middle East and South Asia are less likely to enter self-employment after 9/11, Hispanic immigrants are more likely to enter. Such results show that researchers who fail to distinguish self- and wage-employment as in the previous literature may overlook some important effects of 9/11 on immigrants' labor market outcomes. The third essay is a follow-up study of the second essay and examines how immigrant entrepreneurs have been affected in terms of business exit and earnings. The results show that Middle Eastern and South Asian immigrant entrepreneurs are not negatively affected by 9/11. In fact, this group experienced a larger increase in self-employment earnings, and Quantile Regression Analysis shows that this increase is found at both lower and upper tail of the distribution. Hispanic immigrants overall do not experience negative effects of 9/11 on self-employment outcomes; however, subgroups of Hispanic immigrants show heterogeneous effects - Mexican immigrants are more likely to exit self-employment while other Hispanic immigrants are less likely to exit self-employment after 9/11.

Download or read book Self-employment Among Hispanic and Immigrant Populations written by Chunbei Wang and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation contributes to the understanding of self-employment among Hispanics and Immigrants. The first essay focuses on the most disadvantaged subgroup of Hispanics - Mexican-Americans, and analyzes causes of their low self-employment rate by studying self-employment entry and exits utilizing panel data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). Our results indicate that differences in education and financial wealth are important factors in explaining differences in entrepreneurship across groups. Importantly, we analyze self-employment by recognizing heterogeneity in business ownership across industries and show that a classification of firms by human and financial capital "intensiveness", or entry barriers, is effective in explaining differences in entrepreneurship across ethnic groups. The second essay focuses on immigrants and the impact of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on their self-employment decisions. Using the CPS Basic Monthly Data 2000 to 2005, we find interesting results. We show that there exist significant heterogeneous impacts of 9/11 on the self-employment decisions of immigrants; while immigrants from Middle East and South Asia are less likely to enter self-employment after 9/11, Hispanic immigrants are more likely to enter. Such results show that researchers who fail to distinguish self- and wage-employment as in the previous literature may overlook some important effects of 9/11 on immigrants' labor market outcomes. The third essay is a follow-up study of the second essay and examines how immigrant entrepreneurs have been affected in terms of business exit and earnings. The results show that Middle Eastern and South Asian immigrant entrepreneurs are not negatively affected by 9/11. In fact, this group experienced a larger increase in self-employment earnings, and Quantile Regression Analysis shows that this increase is found at both lower and upper tail of the distribution. Hispanic immigrants overall do not experience negative effects of 9/11 on self-employment outcomes; however, subgroups of Hispanic immigrants show heterogeneous effects - Mexican immigrants are more likely to exit self-employment while other Hispanic immigrants are less likely to exit self-employment after 9/11.