abstract: 'Previous studies have pointed to the existence of barriers at the entry

  of self-employed sectors, such as liquidity constraints. In many

  countries, policies are directed toward removing these barriers in order

  to promote entrepreneurial activity. This paper examines whether such

  barriers exist by examining the amount of rent enjoyed by self-employed

  workers; if there are no barriers between the self-employed sector and

  the salary/wage sector, self-employed workers should not enjoy rents.

  Examination of the rent associated with self-employment, however, cannot

  simply be accomplished by comparing the incomes of self-employed and

  salary/wage workers. This is because self-employed workers may enjoy

  higher utility due to their work environment, with such benefits as

  autonomy and flexibility of work schedules. To overcome the difficulty

  of measuring self-employment rents, I use self-reported job satisfaction

  from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 79 (NLSY79) to capture

  workers'' overall satisfaction with their jobs. The results robustly

  indicate that self-employed workers are more satisfied with their jobs

  than salary/wage workers, even after allowing for the time-invariant

  individual heterogeneity in their reported job satisfaction. This result

  suggests that there are barriers at the entry into self-employment and

  that self-employed workers enjoy rents.'
affiliation: 'Kawaguchi, D (Corresponding Author), Hitotsubashi Univ, Grad Sch Econ,
  Tokyo 1868601, Japan.

  Hitotsubashi Univ, Grad Sch Econ, Tokyo 1868601, Japan.'
author: Kawaguchi, Daiii
author-email: kawaguch@econ.hit-u.ac.jp
author_list:
- family: Kawaguchi
  given: Daiii
da: '2023-09-28'
doi: 10.15057/15881
files: []
issn: 0018-280X
journal: HITOTSUBASHI JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS
keywords: self-employment; job satisfaction
keywords-plus: WINDFALL GAINS; ENTREPRENEURSHIP; RETURNS
language: English
month: JUN
number: '1'
number-of-cited-references: '20'
orcid-numbers: Kawaguchi, Daiji/0000-0002-0595-9443
pages: 35-45
papis_id: c5cf7083cc8094a4fc75963d54327406
ref: Kawaguchi2008selfemploymentrents
times-cited: '10'
title: 'Self-employment rents: Evidence from job satisfaction scores'
type: Article
unique-id: WOS:000257182900004
usage-count-last-180-days: '0'
usage-count-since-2013: '12'
volume: '49'
web-of-science-categories: Economics
year: '2008'