It's the opportunity cost, stupid! How self-employment responds to financial incentives of return, risk and skew.

Autor/inn/en	Berkhout, Peter; Hartog, Joop; Praag, Mirjam van
Institution	Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit
Titel	It's the opportunity cost, stupid! How self-employment responds to financial incentives of return, risk and skew.
Quelle	Bonn (2011), 30 S. PDF als Volltext kostenfreie Datei Link als defekt meldenVerfügbarkeit
Reihe	IZA discussion paper. 6166
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	online; Monographie
Schlagwörter	Entscheidung; Risikobereitschaft; Selbstständigkeit; Segmentierung; Determinante; Einkommensunterschied; Einkommenserwartung; Einkommenshöhe; Ökonomische Determinanten; Arbeitsmarkt; Beruf; Berufsgruppe; Studienfach; Entscheidungskriterium; Hochschulabsolvent; Abhängig Beschäftigter; Berufsanfänger; Selbstständiger; Niederlande
Abstract	"There is no robust empirical support for the effect of financial incentives on the decision to work in self-employment rather than as a wage earner. In the literature, this is seen as a puzzle. We offer a focus on the opportunity cost, i.e. the wages given up as an employee. Information on income from self-employment is of inferior quality and this is not just a problem for the outside researcher, it is an imminent problem of the individual considering self-employment. We also argue that it is not only the location of an income distribution that matters and that dispersion and (a)symmetry should not be ignored. We predict that higher mean, lower variance and higher skew in the wage distribution in a particular employment segment reduce the inclination to prefer self-employment above employee status. Using a sample of 56,000 recent graduates from a Dutch college or university, grouped in approximately 120 labor market segments, we find significant support for these propositions. The results survive various robustness checks on specifications and assumptions." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku). Die Untersuchung enthält quantitative Daten. Forschungsmethode: empirisch-quantitativ; empirisch; Sekundäranalyse. Die Untersuchung bezieht sich auf den Zeitraum 1999 bis 2008.
Erfasst von	Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung, Nürnberg
Update	2012/2