Dinner Table Human Capital and Entrepreneurship

Hans Hvide and Paul Oyer

No 11303, IZA Discussion Papers from IZA Network @ LISER

Abstract: We document three new facts about entrepreneurship. First, a majority of male entrepreneurs start a firm in the same or a closely related industry as their fathers' industry of employment. Second, this tendency is correlated with intelligence: higher-IQ entrepreneurs are less likely to follow their fathers. Third, an entrepreneur that starts a firm in the same 5-digit industry as where his father was employed tends to outperform entrepreneurs in the same industry whose fathers did not work in that industry. We consider various explanations for these facts and conclude that "dinner table human capital", where children obtain industry knowledge through their parents, is an important factor behind what type of firm is started and how well it performs.

Keywords: entrepreneurship; human capital; IQ (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J24 L26 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 60 pages
Date: 2018-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ent, nep-knm, nep-lma and nep-sbm
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Dinner Table Human Capital and Entrepreneurship (2018)
Working Paper: Dinner Table Human Capital and Entrepreneurship (2018)
Working Paper: Dinner Table Human Capital and Entrepreneurship (2017)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11303

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