Self-Employment & Ideology

Abstract:     
The literature suggests individuals who favor a market economy over a more government led model are more likely to become self-employed. This paper addresses two additional questions: First, using three large scale data sets, the empirical results tentatively suggest that the direction of causality runs both ways. Once an individual is self-employed he/she also change their ideology over time. Second, large scale surveys might not give an adequate representation of ideological opinion as their questions are necessarily narrow. Nine in-depth interviews with entrepreneurs, and seventeen non-entrepreneurs in East Germany, however, confirm the broader relationship between attitudes toward the market economy.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 22

Keywords: Political Ideology, Determinants of Entrepreneurship, Economic Sociology

JEL Classification: D00, Z1, Z2

working papers series