The relationship between start-up motive and earnings over the course of the entrepreneur’s business tenure

André van Stel, Ana Millán, Jose Maria Millan and Concepción Román
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Ana Millán: Autonomous University of Barcelona

Journal of Evolutionary Economics, 2018, vol. 28, issue 1, No 5, 123 pages

Abstract: Abstract We investigate whether the start-up motive is related to the entrepreneur’s earnings, and whether the relationship between the entrepreneur’s business tenure (i.e., the time the entrepreneur is running the business) and his earnings depends on the start-up motive. We employ a unique longitudinal data base providing information on start-up motive and earnings for 7902 entrepreneurs in the EU-15 countries, where 12 different start-up motives are distinguished. We classify these 12 motives in three broad categories of opportunity, necessity and other start-up motives. Our analysis shows that, first, earnings of necessity entrepreneurs are significantly lower than those of opportunity entrepreneurs, irrespective of the type of necessity motive. Second, these differences remain rather stable over the course of the entrepreneur’s business tenure, i.e., these differences are of a permanent nature. Third, we do not find evidence for earnings differences within the broad category of necessity entrepreneurs (i.e., between the different types of necessity motives).

Keywords: Business tenure; Earnings; Start-up motives (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D22 L25 L26 M13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

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DOI: 10.1007/s00191-017-0499-3

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