Fossen Frank M
Department of Economics, University of Nevada, Reno, 1664 N. Virginia Street, Reno, NV 89557-0030 USA.
IZA Bonn, Bonn, Germany.
Small Bus Econ (Dordr). 2021;57(4):1837-1855. doi: 10.1007/s11187-020-00375-3. Epub 2020 Jul 29.
Entry rates into self-employment increase during recessions and decrease during economic upswings. I show that this is mostly explained by the higher unemployment rate during a recession, together with the fact that at all times, unemployed persons have a relatively high propensity to become self-employed out of necessity. I use econometric decomposition techniques to quantify these effects based on the monthly matched US Current Population Survey before, during, and after the Great Recession. I also document that the entry rate into self-employment with unincorporated businesses strongly increased during the recession, but not into self-employment with incorporated businesses. This highlights the association of unincorporated and incorporated self-employment with necessity and opportunity entrepreneurship, respectively. The results are useful for policymakers and practitioners to understand, forecast and act on the different types of self-employment that can be expected over the business cycle. There are also important implications for theories of the cyclicality of unemployment and entrepreneurship. Self-employment will increase during recessions when unemployment is high, but it may not boost innovation. During recessions, increased unemployment underlies the higher entry rate into self-employment. Our evidence is from representative survey data from the USA covering the Great Recession. The upside is that self-employment enables workers who lose their jobs to continue to work, which can speed up the subsequent economic recovery. Thus, public policy should enable people to start businesses. However, as during recessions the unemployed mostly start unincorporated businesses, one cannot expect them to boost innovation as much as start-ups during better economic times. These insights also speak to the 2020 recession triggered by COVID-19. If unemployment remains high after the relaxation of the lockdowns, a rise can be expected especially in non-innovative self-employment. Thus, the principal policy implication of this study is that policymakers should ensure that their expectations for new businesses started during deep recessions are realistic for the circumstances.
在经济衰退期间，自主创业的进入率会上升，而在经济上升期则会下降。我发现，这主要是由衰退期间较高的失业率所解释的，同时还因为在任何时候，失业人员出于必要而自主创业的倾向相对较高。我使用计量经济学分解技术，基于大衰退之前、期间和之后的美国月度匹配当前人口调查来量化这些影响。我还记录到，在衰退期间，非公司制企业的自主创业进入率大幅上升，但公司制企业的自主创业进入率却没有。这凸显了非公司制和公司制自主创业分别与必要型创业和机会型创业的关联。这些结果有助于政策制定者和从业者理解、预测并应对商业周期中可能出现的不同类型的自主创业。这对于失业和创业周期性的理论也具有重要意义。当失业率较高时，自主创业在衰退期间会增加，但可能不会促进创新。在衰退期间，失业率上升是自主创业进入率提高的基础。我们的证据来自涵盖大衰退的美国代表性调查数据。好处是自主创业能使失业工人继续工作，这可以加速随后的经济复苏。因此，公共政策应使人们能够创业。然而，由于在衰退期间失业者大多创办非公司制企业，不能期望他们像在经济较好时期的初创企业那样推动创新。这些见解也适用于由新冠疫情引发的2020年衰退。如果封锁解除后失业率仍然很高，可以预期特别是非创新型自主创业会有所增加。因此，本研究的主要政策含义是，政策制定者应确保他们对在深度衰退期间创办的新企业的期望与实际情况相符。
