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Why Are Black-Owned Businesses Less Successful than White-Owned Businesses? The Role of Families, Inheritances, and Business Human Capital

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  • Fairlie, Robert

Abstract

Using confidential microdata from the Characteristics of Business Owners, 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 are 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.

Suggested Citation

  • Fairlie, Robert, 2014. "Why Are Black-Owned Businesses Less Successful than White-Owned Businesses? The Role of Families, Inheritances, and Business Human Capital," Santa Cruz Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt86r7z28d, Department of Economics, UC Santa Cruz.
    • Handle: RePEc:cdl:ucscec:qt86r7z28d
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Business; entrepreneurship; black business; human capital; business human capital; inequality; race;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J23 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Demand

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