Stars and Misfits: Self-Employment and Labor Market Frictions

Thomas Astebro, Jing Chen and Peter Thompson ()

No 1003, Working Papers from Florida International University, Department of Economics

Abstract: Recent evidence has shown that entrants into self-employment are disproportionately drawn from the tails of the earnings and ability distributions. This observation is explained by a multi-task model of occupational choice in which frictions in the labor market induces mismatches between firms and workers, and mis-assignment of workers to tasks. The model also yields distinctive predictions relating prior work histories to earnings and to the probability of entry into self-employment. These predictions are tested with the Korean Labor and Income Panel Study, from which we find considerable support for the model.

Keywords: entreprenuership; self-employment; jack-of-all trades; skill complementarity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J24 L26 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 37 pages
Date: 2010-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ent and nep-lab
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (24)

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http://casgroup.fiu.edu/pages/docs/1567/1275074349_10-03.pdf First version, 2010 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Stars and Misfits: Self-Employment and Labor Market Frictions (2011)
Working Paper: Stars and Misfits: Self-Employment and Labor Market Frictions (2011)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fiu:wpaper:1003

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