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Comovement Between Self-Employment and Macroeconomic Variables

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  • Mónica Carmona
  • Emilio Congregado
  • Antonio A. Golpe

Abstract

The relationship between self-employment and certain macroeconomic variables is often at the heart of the debate about the contributions of self-employment to employment and economic growth; examining this relationship is the aim of this article. This article is devoted to the empirical exploration of the comovement and causality between entrepreneurship and economic performance in both directions. This study searches for basic relationships between self-employment and certain macroeconomic variables in Spain using quarterly data from 1980:1 to 2009:4. From this analysis, four key findings emerge: (a) the relation between self-employment and the business cycle differs across two components of self-employment, that is, employers and own-account workers; (b) the existence of a strong bidirectional causality between self-employment and unemployment and GDP; (c) business cycles contain information valuable for predicting today’s employers; and (d) entrepreneurship promotion policies oriented to encourage the emergence of new job creators may be a cornerstone of a new strategy to combat unemployment. These results should be kept in mind when designing entrepreneurship policies.

Suggested Citation

  • Mónica Carmona & Emilio Congregado & Antonio A. Golpe, 2012. "Comovement Between Self-Employment and Macroeconomic Variables," SAGE Open, , vol. 2(2), pages 21582440124, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:sagope:v:2:y:2012:i:2:p:2158244012448665
    DOI: 10.1177/2158244012448665
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Emilio Congregado & Antonio Golpe & André Stel, 2014. "The role of scale economies in determining firm size in modern economies," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 52(2), pages 431-455, March.
    2. repec:cii:cepiei:2014-q2-138-2 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Ignacio Moral-Arce & Javier Martín-Román & Ángel L. Martín-Román, 2019. "Cessation of Activity Benefit for Spanish Self-employed Workers: A Heterogeneous Impact Evaluation," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 231(4), pages 41-79, December.
    4. Lechman, Ewa & Dominiak, Piotr, 2016. "Entrepreneurship vulnerability to business cycle. A new methodology for identification pro-cyclical and counter-cyclical patterns of entrepreneurial activity," MPRA Paper 68793, University Library of Munich, Germany.

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