IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tin/wpaper/20090003.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Firm Formation with Complementarities: The Role of the Entrepreneur

Author

Listed:
  • Christian Roessler

    (Rice University, and University of Queensland, Australia)

  • Philipp Koellinger

    (Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands)

Abstract

We model entrepreneurship and the emergence of firms as a result of simultaneous bidding for labor services among heterogeneousagents. Unique to our approach is that occupational choices, jobmatching and organizational forms are determined simultaneously, sothat the opportunity costs of entrepreneurs are accounted for. Wefind that (1) individuals who are relatively unmanageable become entrepreneurs; (2) entrepreneurs compete against each other and createvalue by building efficient organizations and offering potentially verywell paid jobs for others; and (3) entry of an additional entrepreneurtypically reduces some individual wages, but always raises the averagewage and depresses the average incomes of incumbent entrepreneurs- strictly so if the new firm partially imitates existing organizations.Our results shed a new light on the role of entrepreneurs in the economy and may be applied to explain low returns to self-employment.

Suggested Citation

  • Christian Roessler & Philipp Koellinger, 2009. "Firm Formation with Complementarities: The Role of the Entrepreneur," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 09-003/3, Tinbergen Institute, revised 26 Jul 2011.
    • Handle: RePEc:tin:wpaper:20090003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://papers.tinbergen.nl/09003.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Valery Polkovnichenko, 2003. "Human Capital and the Private Equity Premium," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 6(4), pages 831-845, October.
    2. Michael Kremer, 1993. "The O-Ring Theory of Economic Development," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(3), pages 551-575.
    3. de Meza, David & Southey, Clive, 1996. "The Borrower's Curse: Optimism, Finance and Entrepreneurship," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 106(435), pages 375-386, March.
    4. Crawford, Vincent P & Knoer, Elsie Marie, 1981. "Job Matching with Heterogeneous Firms and Workers," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(2), pages 437-450, March.
    5. Edward P. Lazear, 2004. "Balanced Skills and Entrepreneurship," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 208-211, May.
    6. Matthias Benz & Bruno S. Frey, 2008. "Being Independent is a Great Thing: Subjective Evaluations of Self‐Employment and Hierarchy," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 75(298), pages 362-383, May.
    7. Koellinger, Philipp & Minniti, Maria & Schade, Christian, 2007. ""I think I can, I think I can": Overconfidence and entrepreneurial behavior," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 502-527, August.
    8. Dutta, Bhaskar & Masso, Jordi, 1997. "Stability of Matchings When Individuals Have Preferences over Colleagues," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 464-475, August.
    9. Galina Vereshchagina & Hugo A. Hopenhayn, 2009. "Risk Taking by Entrepreneurs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(5), pages 1808-1830, December.
    10. Roth, Alvin E, 1984. "Stability and Polarization of Interests in Job Matching," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(1), pages 47-57, January.
    11. Robert E. Lucas Jr., 1978. "On the Size Distribution of Business Firms," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 9(2), pages 508-523, Autumn.
    12. John William Hatfield & Paul R. Milgrom, 2005. "Matching with Contracts," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 913-935, September.
    13. Ma, Jinpeng, 2001. "Job Matching and Coalition Formation with Utility or Disutility of Co-workers," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 83-103, January.
    14. Murray Z. Frank, 1988. "An Intertemporal Model of Industrial Exit," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 103(2), pages 333-344.
    15. Kelso, Alexander S, Jr & Crawford, Vincent P, 1982. "Job Matching, Coalition Formation, and Gross Substitutes," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(6), pages 1483-1504, November.
    16. Dan Lovallo & Colin Camerer, 1999. "Overconfidence and Excess Entry: An Experimental Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(1), pages 306-318, March.
    17. Barton H. Hamilton, 2000. "Does Entrepreneurship Pay? An Empirical Analysis of the Returns to Self-Employment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(3), pages 604-631, June.
    18. Evans, David S & Jovanovic, Boyan, 1989. "An Estimated Model of Entrepreneurial Choice under Liquidity Constraints," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(4), pages 808-827, August.
    19. Kihlstrom, Richard E & Laffont, Jean-Jacques, 1979. "A General Equilibrium Entrepreneurial Theory of Firm Formation Based on Risk Aversion," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(4), pages 719-748, August.
    20. Bohacek, Radim, 2006. "Financial constraints and entrepreneurial investment," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(8), pages 2195-2212, November.
    21. Blanchflower, David G. & Oswald, Andrew & Stutzer, Alois, 2001. "Latent entrepreneurship across nations," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(4-6), pages 680-691, May.
    22. Katerina Sherstyuk, 1999. "Multisided matching games with complementarities," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 28(4), pages 489-509.
    23. Sherwin Rosen, 1982. "Authority, Control, and the Distribution of Earnings," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 13(2), pages 311-323, Autumn.
    24. Laussel, Didier & Le Breton, Michel, 1995. "A general equilibrium theory of firm formation based on individual unobservable skills," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 39(7), pages 1303-1319, August.
    25. Rees, Hedley & Shah, Anup, 1986. "An Empirical Analysis of Self-employment in the U.K," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 1(1), pages 95-108, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Philipp Koellinger & Matthijs Loos & Patrick Groenen & A. Thurik & Fernando Rivadeneira & Frank Rooij & André Uitterlinden & Albert Hofman, 2010. "Genome-wide association studies in economics and entrepreneurship research: promises and limitations," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 35(1), pages 1-18, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Roessler, Christian & Koellinger, Philipp, 2012. "Entrepreneurship and organization design," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(4), pages 888-902.
    2. Frank M. Fossen, 2012. "Risk Attitudes and Private Business Equity," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1209, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    3. Ross Levine & Yona Rubinstein, 2017. "Smart and Illicit: Who Becomes an Entrepreneur and Do They Earn More?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 132(2), pages 963-1018.
    4. Nadia Simoes & Nuno Crespo & Sandrina B. Moreira, 2016. "Individual Determinants Of Self-Employment Entry: What Do We Really Know?," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(4), pages 783-806, September.
    5. Michele Dell'Era & Luca David Opromolla & Luís Santos‐Pinto, 2023. "Can optimism solve the entrepreneurial earnings puzzle?," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 125(1), pages 139-169, January.
    6. Roy Thurik, 2014. "Entrepreneurship and the business cycle," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 1-90, October.
    7. Galina Vereshchagina & Hugo A. Hopenhayn, 2009. "Risk Taking by Entrepreneurs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(5), pages 1808-1830, December.
    8. Giuliano Guerra & Roberto Patuelli, 2016. "The Role of Job Satisfaction in Transitions into Self–Employment," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 40(3), pages 543-571, May.
    9. Alina Sorgner & Michael Fritsch & Alexander Kritikos, 2017. "Do entrepreneurs really earn less?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 49(2), pages 251-272, August.
    10. Ross Levine & Yona Rubinstein, 2013. "Smart and Illicit: Who Becomes an Entrepreneur and Does it Pay?," CEP Discussion Papers dp1237, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    11. Philipp Koellinger & Matthijs Loos & Patrick Groenen & A. Thurik & Fernando Rivadeneira & Frank Rooij & André Uitterlinden & Albert Hofman, 2010. "Genome-wide association studies in economics and entrepreneurship research: promises and limitations," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 35(1), pages 1-18, July.
    12. Brian Ashcroft & Darryl Holden & Kenneth Low, 2009. "Entrepreneurial Interest, Vision and the Self-employment Choice Decision in UK Regions," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(8), pages 1075-1090.
    13. Ross Levine & Yona Rubinstein, 2018. "Selection into Entrepreneurship and Self-Employment," NBER Working Papers 25350, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Francine Lafontaine & Kathryn Shaw, 2016. "Serial Entrepreneurship: Learning by Doing?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(S2), pages 217-254.
    15. Serguey Braguinsky & Steven Klepper & Atsushi Ohyama, 2012. "High-Tech Entrepreneurship," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 55(4), pages 869-900.
    16. Boyan Jovanovic, 2019. "The entrepreneurship premium," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 53(3), pages 555-568, October.
    17. Wim Naudé, 2008. "Entrepreneurship in Economic Development," WIDER Working Paper Series RP2008-20, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    18. Rachel G. Childers, 2011. "Being One'S Own Boss: How Does Risk Fit In?," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 56(1), pages 48-58, May.
    19. Luca David Opromolla & Michele Dell'Era, 2018. "A General Equilibrium Theory of Occupational Choice under Optimistic Beliefs about Entrepreneurial Ability," Working Papers w201822, Banco de Portugal, Economics and Research Department.
    20. Jolanda Hessels & José María Millán & Concepción Román, 2015. "The Importance of Being in Control of Business: Work Satisfaction of Employers, Own-account Workers and Employees," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 15-047/VII, Tinbergen Institute.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Entrepreneurship; job matching; occupational choice; firm formation; firm organization;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L26 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Entrepreneurship
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • D20 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - General
    • L23 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Organization of Production

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:tin:wpaper:20090003. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Tinbergen Office +31 (0)10-4088900 (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/tinbenl.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.