Drug dealing and legitimate self-employment

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Fairlie, RW
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California Santa Cruz; Northwestern University; University of Chicago
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF LABOR ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0734-306X
• DOI: 10.1086/339610
• 发表日期: 2002
• 页码: 538-567
• 关键词: discrimination; BUSINESS; MODEL; men

摘要

Theoretical models of self-employment posit that attitudes toward risk, entrepreneurial ability, and preferences for autonomy are central to the individual's decision between self-employment and wage/salary work. I provide indirect evidence on this hypothesis by examining the relationship between drug dealing as a youth and legitimate self-employment in later years using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. I find that drug dealers are 11%-21% more likely to choose self-employment than non-drug-dealers, all else equal. After ruling out a few alternative explanations, I interpret these results as providing indirect evidence supporting the hypothesis.