Why are black-owned businesses less successful than white-owned businesses? The role of families, inheritances, and business human capital

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Fairlie, Robert W.; Robb, Alicia M.
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California Santa Cruz
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF LABOR ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0734-306X
• DOI: 10.1086/510763
• 发表日期: 2007
• 页码: 289-323
• 关键词: self-employment; multiple imputation; DISCRIMINATION; WEALTH

摘要

Using confidential microdata from the Characteristics of Business Owners survey, we examine why African American - owned businesses lag substantially behind white-owned businesses in sales, profits, employment, and survival. Black business owners are much less likely than white owners to have had a self-employed family member owner prior to starting their business and less likely to have worked in that family member's business. Using a nonlinear decomposition technique, we find that the lack of prior work experience in a family business among black business owners, perhaps by limiting their acquisition of general and specific business human capital, negatively affects black business outcomes.