Only a minority of micro-businesses create jobs for others. This paper addresses whether personal characteristics and resources of the microbusiness owner or the local external economic environment are drivers of job creation. In the UK context of significant growth in self-employment but a...

An often-heard argument is that South Africa's very high crime rate is the main reason for the country's small share of business ownership. Combining a fixed-effects model with an instrumental variable approach, we estimate the effect of crime on self-employment and business performance using a...

Social distancing restrictions and demand shifts from COVID-19 are expected to shutter many small businesses, but there is very little early evidence on impacts. This paper provides the first analysis of impacts of the pandemic on the number of active small businesses in the United States using...

Only a few large, nationally-representative datasets include information on both the owner and the business. We briefly describe several of the most respected and up-to-date sources of data on entrepreneurs, the self-employed, and small businesses. More information including estimates of recent...

"Entrepreneurs out of necessity" identified by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor survey are a sizeable group across countries. They tend to have low education, run smaller firms, expect their firms to grow less, but are likely to stay in the market. This evidence is a challenge for existing...

Small business lending programs designed to move disadvantaged low-income people into business ownership have been difficult to implement successfully in the US context. Based in part on the premise that financing requirements are an entry barrier limiting the ability of aspiring entrepreneurs...

We are the first to provide a comparative empirical analysis of non-farm entrepreneurship in rural Africa, using the World Bank's unique LSMSISA dataset. This dataset covers six countries over the period 2005 to 2012. We find that rural enterprises tend to be small, informal household...

This paper employs regression discontinuity methods to identify the effect of formality on Brazilian micro-firm performance. The SIMPLES program introduced in November 1996 consolidated multiple taxes and social security contributions into a single payment and reduced taxes for eligible small...

This paper investigates whether self-employed households use consumer loans - in particular instalment loans and overdrafts - to finance business activities. Controlling for financial and non-financial household variables we show that self-employed households particularly use personal overdrafts...

This article reviews the recent literature in economics on small-scale entrepreneurship ("microentrepreneurship") in low-income countries. Major themes in the literature include the determinants and consequences of joining the formal sector; the impacts of access to credit and other financial...