Mating competition and entrepreneurship

Simon Chang and Xiaobo Zhang

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2015, vol. 116, issue C, 292-309

Abstract: We used a natural experiment in Taiwan to test whether mating competition is a major motive for entrepreneurship. After being defeated in Mainland China, more than half million solders retreated to Taiwan in 1949. The soldiers were not allowed to get married until the military marriage ban was lifted in 1959. The policy change created a severe marriage squeeze for local men, triggering their animal spirits to engage in entrepreneurial activities. Empirical results show that local men exposed to high sex ratios as a result of the removal of the marriage ban were more likely to become entrepreneurs later on.

Keywords: Sex ratios; Mating competition; Entrepreneurship; Taiwan (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J10 L26 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268115001390
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:116:y:2015:i:c:p:292-309

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2015.05.004

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization is currently edited by Houser, D. and Puzzello, D.

More articles in Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().