The low incomes of self-employed immigrants in Denmark and Sweden

Pernilla Andersson Joona and Eskil Wadensjö

Brussels Economic Review, 2005, vol. 48, issue 1-2, 43-72

Abstract: In this paper we analyse the incomes of self-employed in Denmark and Sweden and ask if there exist income differences between natives and immigrants. The OLS-estimates show that non-western immigrants have significantly lower annual incomes than their native counterparts. We then estimate quantile regressions and find that the difference between natives and non-Western immigrants is significantly smaller among those with high incomes (90th percentile) compared to those with low incomes (10th percentile). One explanation for this result may be that immigrants charge a lower price for their goods and services due to discriminatory behaviour among customers. Another explanation may be that non-Western immigrants have a lower reservation wage and hence accept to stay in business receiving a lower profit.

Keywords: Self-employed; Immigrant worker; Income distribution; Quantile regressions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J15 J23 J31 J61 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://dipot.ulb.ac.be/dspace/bitstream/2013/11985/1/ber-0321.pdf ber-0321 (application/pdf)

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:bxr:bxrceb:y:2005:v:48:i:1-2:p:43-71

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://hdl.handle.ne ... ulb.ac.be:2013/11985

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Brussels Economic Review from ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Benoit Pauwels ().