• Media type: Report; E-Book
  • Title: Entrepreneurship and market size: The case of young college graduates in Italy
  • Contributor: Di Addario, Sabrina [Author]; Vuri, Daniela [Author]
  • Published: Bonn: Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), 2010
  • Language: English
  • Keywords: J21 ; urbanization ; R12 ; J24 ; labor market transitions
  • Origination:
  • Footnote: Diese Datenquelle enthält auch Bestandsnachweise, die nicht zu einem Volltext führen.
  • Description: We analyze empirically the effects of urban agglomeration on Italian college graduates' work possibilities as entrepreneurs three years after graduation. We find that each 100,000 inhabitant-increase in the size of the individual's province of work reduces the chances of being an entrepreneur by 0.2-0.3 percent. This result holds after controlling for regional fixed effects and is robust to instrumenting urbanization. Province's competition, urban amenities and dis-amenities, cost of labor, earning differentials between employees and self-employed workers, unemployment rates and value added per capita account for 40 percent of the negative urbanization penalty. Our result cannot be explained by the presence of negative large-city differentials in returns to education either. In fact, as long as they succeed in entering the largest markets, young entrepreneurs are able to reap-off the benefits of urbanization externalities: every 100,000-inhabitant increase in the province's population raises entrepreneurs' net monthly income by 0.2-0.3 percent.
  • Access State: Open Access