Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
Prior research suggests that expanding entrepreneurship or self-employment is a key strategy for promoting economic growth in rural, distressed regions. Furthermore, self-employment rates of women and minorities (especially Blacks) have lagged those of White males in rural areas. This project seeks to understand the factors (or barriers) that support (or deter) women and minority entrepreneurship and translate these findings to help key stakeholders develop policies and programs to support women and minority entrepreneurs. Our objectives include 1) identifying the factors associated with higher shares of women and minority self-employed in rural counties using unique proprietary data; 2) examining the factors associated with the success or failure of women and minority entrepreneurs using confidential firm-level micro data; and 3) translating the research findings into Extension programming to support rural women and minority entrepreneurship and promote broad rural prosperity.
Animal Health Component
0%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
100%
Applied
(N/A)
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
Identify the factors associated with higher shares of women and minority entrepreneurs at the county level, with a focus on rural areas.Informed by the results from Objective 1), analyze the factors associated with the success or failure (survivability and profitability analysis) of rural women and minority entrepreneurs using firm-level micro-data.Translate the scientific findings under Objectives 1 and 2 into Extension and other outreach educational programming for entrepreneurial support organizations and local officials to build the capacity of rural communities to improve entrepreneurship by women, minorities, and other socially disadvantaged groups in order to promote rural prosperity.
Project Methods
To determine which factors affect self-employment rates and how these factors vary across different groups of entrepreneurs, we will estimate a series of regressions in which the share of self-employment attributable to group g in county c during year t is regressed against a series of county-level factors which affect entrepreneurship.Using establishment-level micro-data combined with data on other local area factors, we will examine the factors that are important to increasing self-employment and success for individual businesses.