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Essays on Business Ownership and Self-Employment

Munk, Robert Owen
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1468243651

Abstract Details

2016, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Economics.
This dissertation contains three chapters on self-employment and business ownership. In the first chapter, I re-examine the earnings differential between self- and wage-employed men. Using data from the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, I find that the timing and (voluntary or involuntary) nature of men’s transitions into self-employment are important determinants of whether they receive wage-gains. I find that when a man transitions from wage-employment to self-employment voluntarily and early in his career, his wage is predicted to increase contemporaneously by 31%. The magnitude of this increase is 2.6 times larger than the predicted wage change associated with a voluntary, early-career transition to a new wage job. Conversely, I find that when a man transitions from wage-employment to self-employment involuntarily and late in his career, his predicted wage decreases contemporaneously by 18%. The magnitude of this decrease is larger than the predicted 13% wage decrease associated with an involuntary, late career transition to a new wage job. In the second chapter, motivated by the finding that partnered men and women are more likely to become business owners than are their single counterparts, I ask whether the observed marriage and cohabitation effects are a result of partner income. Using data from the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, I first show that when partner income is included as a control, the marriage and cohabitation effects decrease substantially for women, while the effects persist for men. Second, I show that the marriage and cohabitation effects vary with partner income for women but not men. For example, a woman whose husband’s income is in the fifth quintile is 1.9 times more likely to transition to business ownership than a woman whose husband’s income is in the second quintile for men. On the other hand, a married man with a high-income wife is no more or less likely to transition to business ownership than a married man with a low-income wife. In the third chapter, re-examine Lazear’s (2005) jack-of-all-trades theory. Using data from the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, I ask, what are the wage gains associated with a self-employed worker’s prior occupational experience? Overall, I find results consistent with Lazear’s theory, which suggests that the returns to occupational specialization are substantially larger for wage workers than the self-employed. I predict that self-employed workers with ten years of prior occupational experience earn a wage that is only 3.2% greater than do self-employed workers with two years of prior occupational experience. However, for wage workers I predict that the wage gains associated with a ten year increase in prior occupational experience (zero to ten years) is 2.1 times larger than the wage gains associated with a two year increase (zero to two years) in prior occupational experience.
Audrey Light (Advisor)
Kurt Lavetti (Committee Member)
Bruce Weinberg (Committee Member)
168 p.
Economics
self-employment; business ownership; economics; entrepreneurship;

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Munk, R. O. (2016). Essays on Business Ownership and Self-Employment [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1468243651

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Munk, Robert. Essays on Business Ownership and Self-Employment. 2016. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1468243651.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Munk, Robert. "Essays on Business Ownership and Self-Employment." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1468243651

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1468243651
983
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This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.