Opportunity versus Necessity : Understanding the Heterogeneity of Female Micro-Entrepreneurs

Calderon, Gabriela ; Iacovone, Leonardo ; Juarez, Laura

Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank

关键词: FEMALE ENTREPRENEURS;    MICROENTERPRISES;    MANAGEMENT QUALITY;   

DOI  :  10.1093/wber/lhw010
RP-ID  :  140516

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Entrepreneurs that voluntarily choose tostart a business because they are able to identify a goodbusiness opportunity and act on it opportunity entrepreneursmight be different along various dimensions from those whoare forced to become entrepreneurs because of lack of otheralternatives necessity entrepreneurs. To provide evidence onthese differences, this article exploits a unique data setcovering a wide array of characteristics, includingcognitive skills, noncognitive skills, and managerialpractices, for a large sample of female entrepreneurs inMexico. Descriptive results show that on average opportunityentrepreneurs have better performance and higher skills thannecessity entrepreneurs. A discriminant analysis revealsthat discrimination is difficult to achieve based on theseobservables, which suggests the existence of unobservablesdriving both the decision to become an opportunityentrepreneur and performance. Thus, an instrumentalvariables estimation is conducted, using state economicgrowth in the year the business was set up as an instrumentfor opportunity, to confirm that opportunity entrepreneurshave higher performance and better management practices.