Entrepreneurial Spirit and Immigrant Self-employment

• Main Author: Sandell-Gandara, Alejandro
• Format: Others
• Published: Scholarship @ Claremont 2019
• Subjects: Immigration; Entrepreneurship; Self-employment; GEI; Culture; Entrepreneurial Spirit; Dance; Labor Economics
• Online Access: https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/2055; https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3101&context=cmc_theses

This paper investigates the effect of entrepreneurial spirit on immigrant entrepreneurship in the United States. Entrepreneurial spirit refers to attitudes and perceptions towards entrepreneurship, or general self-employment. I address the home country self-employment hypothesis and examine the effect of home country self-employment rates on immigrant self-employment outcomes. I find a negative effect of home country self-employment rates on immigrant self-employment rates and thus, reject the home country self-employment hypothesis. I argue that home country self-employment rates over-estimate entrepreneurial spirit because they are largely driven by the world’s poorest people who are less likely emigrate to the U.S. I address this issue by using immigrants’ home country’s Global Entrepreneurship Index (GEI) as a measure of immigrant entrepreneurial spirit. I find that the GEI has a positive effect on immigrant self-employment rates, and provide evidence that entrepreneurial spirit has a positive effect on immigrant entrepreneurship in the U.S.