What Makes a Die-Hard Entrepreneur? Beyond the 'Employee or Entrepreneur' Dichotomy

38 Pages Posted: 28 Sep 2006

See all articles by Michael A. Nolan

Michael A. Nolan

University of Hull - Department of Economics

Andrew E. Burke

Cranfield University - School of Management

Felix R. Fitzroy

University of St. Andrews; IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Date Written: September 2006

Abstract

The paper makes three contributions to the economics literature on entrepreneurship. We offer a new measure of entrepreneurship which accounts for variations in persistence in self-employment and as a result avoids the weakness of approaches which categorise an individual as an entrepreneur by observing their occupation at just one point in their career. We outline an econometric methodology to account for this approach and find that it is superior to probit/logit models which have dominated the literature. While our results indicate that this existing literature is good at explaining an individual's propensity to try self-employment, we find that entrepreneurial persistence is determined by a different model and unearth some new insights into the roles of early career experience, finance, role models, gender and the unemployment push effect.

Keywords: self-employment, entrepreneurial persistence, count data

JEL Classification: J23, C25

Suggested Citation

Nolan, Michael A. and Burke, Andrew E. and Fitzroy, Felix R., What Makes a Die-Hard Entrepreneur? Beyond the 'Employee or Entrepreneur' Dichotomy (September 2006). IZA Discussion Paper No. 2307, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=933037 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.933037

Michael A. Nolan (Contact Author)

University of Hull - Department of Economics ( email )

Cottingham Road
Hull HU6 7RX, Great Britain
United Kingdom

Andrew E. Burke

Cranfield University - School of Management ( email )

Bedfordshire, MK43 0AL
United Kingdom

HOME PAGE: http://www.som.cranfield.ac.uk/som/faculty/Showfaculty.asp?link=420

Felix R. Fitzroy

University of St. Andrews ( email )

St Salvator's College
St Andrews, Fife, KY16 9AJ
United Kingdom
+44 1334 462437 (Phone)
+44 1334 462444 (Fax)

IZA Institute of Labor Economics

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

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