The heterogeneity of self-employment: The example of Asians in the United States

John Lunn and Todd P. Steen

No 6, University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics from University of Goettingen, Department of Economics

Abstract: Self-employment rates differ widely across industries and across racial and ethnic categories. The former is relatively easy for economists to explain while the latter differences are more difficult. Self-employment is rare in industries for which production is characterized by substantial economies of scale. Self-employment is more common in services than in manufacturing, although it is greatest in agriculture. There are also substantial differences in self-employment across countries, with the evidence suggesting an inverse relationship between self-employment and economic development. For the United States, self- employment rates tend to be higher in less densely populated states because self-employment rates are greater when average firm size is smaller (Lunn and Steen, 2000). According to some people, differences in self-employment rates across racial and ethnic categories are due to discrimination. Self-employment rates are higher for whites than other racial/ethnic groups, and are higher for men than for women. The numerous programs initiated by state and local governments to assist minority- and women-owned businesses usually offer discrimination against minorities and women as a rationale for the programs. However, self-employment rates often differ widely across more narrowly defined groups within broader racial or ethnic classifications. Within the United States, there is a relatively large gap between self-employment rates of Mexicans and Cubans, and a larger gap between Koreans and Laotians. Fairlie (1996) reports self-employment rates for Russians of 24.9 percent and 10.5 percent for Belgians. These differences in self-employment rates within broader classifications (Hispanics, Asians, and Europeans) suggest that discrimination may not be the primary cause. In this paper, we examine self-employment rates among various ethnic groups within the broader classification of Asian to illustrate the heterogeneity of the self-employed, and to discuss the implications of this heterogeneity.

Date: 2000
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/31993/1/500237980.pdf (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:zbw:cegedp:6

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics from University of Goettingen, Department of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().