“Globalization, Competition and Entrepreneurial Activity: Evidence from US Households” by Prof. Praveen Kumar
Professor
C.T. Bauer College of Business
University of Houston
Motivated by the accelerated decline in US entrepreneurship in the past two decades, and using a unique panel dataset of US households, we theoretically and empirically analyze the economy-wide effects of increased product market competition through low-cost import penetration on household entrepreneurial activity. Our study is unique in documenting the asymmetric inter-sectorial shifts in entrepreneurial activity between (trade) exposed and non-exposed sectors. Greater import competition reduces especially business entry in exposed sectors by individuals with low occupational skills (for example, those in routine task-intensity service occupations or exhibiting high occupational mobility), but it increases entry by highly educated individuals in high-skill non-exposed sectors. The results are robust to several alternative hypotheses based on long-run trends in US entrepreneurship and labor market specialization, local collateral and credit shocks, long-run bank distress effects, and dynamic feedback effects.