Optimism, Job Satisfaction and Self-Employment

Chris Dawson ()

No 20/14, Department of Economics Working Papers from University of Bath, Department of Economics

Abstract: Using UK data from 1991 to 2008 this paper investigates whether excessive optimism affects individual level self-employed job satisfaction. Within the context of this paper, excessive optimism refers to the inclination to overestimate the probability of good financial outcomes. Evidence is provided that conditional on self-employed performance, optimism is negatively and significantly associated with self-employed job satisfaction, especially satisfaction with pay. Moreover the detrimental effects of optimism on satisfaction are larger in self-employment than in paid-employment. The results indicate that the higher levels of satisfaction obtained by the self-employed do not result from the self-selection of optimists, suggesting previous studies may underestimate the positive effects of self-employment on utility.

Keywords: optimism; self-employment; job satisfaction; expectations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-04-15
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ent, nep-hap and nep-lab
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eid:wpaper:39313

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