Essays in Entrepreneurship and Finance

Abstract

This thesis consists of three chapters on entrepreneurship and finance. The first chapter studies how small employers are the origins of entrepreneurs. I find that workers at small employers are more likely to be entrepreneurs in the future and that entrepreneurs who previously worked at successful small employers are more likely to start successful firms. This is consistent with a hypothesis of learning entrepreneurial human capital at work. The second chapter, joint with Alex Martin, studies the impact of access to childcare on self-employment outcomes. We find that parents, particularly mothers with children too young for kindergarten, are more likely to be self-employed and less likely to be in the formal workforce than parents with children old enough for school. When introducing exogenous access to pre-kindergarten childcare, mothers with access are less likely to be self-employed and more likely to be in formal work. This suggests that labor market barriers in formal work are a push into self-employment for parents. However, self-employment in this setting results in lower wages and difficulty finding future work, so policy should work to correct this push. The third chapter studies the spillover effects of labor displacement from technological innovation in local U.S. labor markets. I find evidence of a decrease in local aggregate demand in local economies that are particularly hit by labor displacement.