| Entrepreneurship plays an important role in economic and social development.At the macro level,entrepreneurship can promote the growth of the total economy,increase productivity,create job opportunities,and promote innovation.At the micro-individual level,entrepreneurial activity promotes flexibility in the employment of the labor force and increases job satisfaction,life satisfaction and subjective well-being of the individual.In recent years,China's economic development is in urgent need of innovation and entrepreneurial activity.How to encourage people to start a business and cultivate the entrepreneurial atmosphere of "mass entrepreneurship and innovation" has become a topic of high concern to policymakers and scholars.Although the academic community realized the importance of entrepreneurial activities early on,the research on the entrepreneurial behavior of Chinese residents still needs to be expanded.In the literature discussing the multidimensional influencing factors of entrepreneurship,the relationship between wealth and entrepreneurship is a research hotspot and a difficult issue.There is a large amount of research abroad to conduct theoretical and empirical discussions on the relationship between the two,but in China,because of the limitation in terms of data and research methods,there is little discussion about the relationship between them,and most studies take farmers as the object of the research.Considering that the intervening policies that government chooses to encourage entrepreneurial behaviors are often through financial means,the gaps in domestic studies have reduced the reliability of policy implementation.This paper studies the entrepreneurial issues of urban residents in China from the perspective of family wealth.The relationship between wealth and entrepreneurship is the main content of this paper.Based on this,this paper further studies the impact of entrepreneurship on individual utility in terms of monetary return and non-monetary return.Research on entrepreneurial returns,on the one hand,helps to understand whether the mechanism of individual's decision to become an entrepreneur is based on the "high-income" nature of entrepreneurship,or "non-monetary utility";on the other hand,it can test whether China's current economic environment is conducive to individuals to start their own businesses.Focusing on the issues raised above,this paper first establishes an occupational selection model at the individual level,combines wealth and entrepreneurship into the same analytical framework.For simplicity,this paper only considers a single period of entrepreneurial choice behavior,and the employment choices faced by individuals are divided into two categories: wage work and entrepreneurial activity,and it is assumed that rational individuals make decisions based on relative income.Given the income function and budget constraints of the entrepreneur and the wage earner,the optimal income function for both is calculated.Whether or not to choose a startup depends on the level of the two types of optimal income function.After judging the relationship between wealth and entrepreneurship,in theory,the hypothesis of this paper is proposed.Secondly,this paper empirically examines the relationship between wealth and entrepreneurship,uses CHIP2008 data to do the baseline estimation,and uses the probit model to estimate the impact of wealth on individual entrepreneurial behavior,taking into account the endogenous problem and the possible nonlinear relationship between the two.Based on the baseline estimation,four round panel data of CFPS are added in to overcome the unobserved heterogeneity of cross-sectional data and provide a robustness test of the relationship between wealth and entrepreneurship.Third,the introduction of housing reforms,which can be regarded as a "natural experiment" and have an exogenous positive impact on wealth,can help better identify the causal relationship between wealth and entrepreneurship by difference-in-difference and panel fixed effect model.Finally,this paper estimates the impact of entrepreneurship on individual utility and uses CHIP2008 data to estimate both monetary and non-monetary returns.Based on the results of benchmark estimates,this paper also uses CHNS data to provide a robustness test to the monetary return to entrepreneurship and uses CLDS data to provide a robustness test to the non-monetary return to entrepreneurship.Through the above analysis,this paper comes to the following conclusions:Firstly,from the deduction of the career choice model,there is a positive correlation between wealth and entrepreneurship.The probability of entrepreneurship increases with wealth.And in dynamic analysis framework,after considering the sample selection problem,there may be a reverse-U relationship between wealth and entrepreneurship.It turns out that there is a critical point in wealth.Before reaching the threshold level,there is a positive correlation between the two,but after the critical point,the higher the level of wealth,the lower the entrepreneurial ability,so the two are negatively related.Second,some conclusions are drawn in terms of the estimation of family wealth on entrepreneurship.This paper first does the estimation based on CHIP2008.The coefficient of family wealth is significantly positive,which indicates that the more family wealth,the higher the probability that individuals choose to start a business.After using the methods of selecting more exogenous indicators and introducing instrumental variables to mitigate endogenous problems,the findings are still robust.By differentiating the impact of wealth on different types of entrepreneurial activities,it is found that wealth significantly increased the probability of urban residents to choose to be self-employed but had little or no impact on the choice of becoming an employer.This may be because,compared to "employer-type" entrepreneurship,the "self-employed type" entrepreneurial activity's entry threshold is lower,the initial input is lower,and entry and exit are relatively easy,so it is more likely to be affected by the wealth level.However,the "employer-type" entrepreneurship usually requires a larger scale of operation,with a relatively high "entry threshold" and requires higher initial investment.Therefore,it is not easily affected by the wealth.Considering the nonlinear relationship between wealth and entrepreneurship,it is found that there is a reverse-U relationship between the two.Noting that the data of CHIP2008 is a single-year cross-sectional data,there may be some limitations in the identification of the relationship between wealth and entrepreneurial behavior.In order to ensure the robustness of the estimation results,this paper further introduces the data of the four-round CFPS panel and uses the panel fixed effect model to re-test the relationship between wealth and entrepreneurial behavior.Further robustness tests also verify the conclusions of the baseline estimation.The quantitative analysis of wealth and entrepreneurial behavior is consistent with the theoretical hypothesis.Thirdly,in the empirical study of the relationship between wealth and entrepreneurship,the use of "quasi-natural experiments" that can cause the exogenous impact on wealth,and the use of the difference-in-difference method for estimation are the frontiers of this study.At the end of the last century,the housing reform of the public sector in China was a "quasi-natural experiment" that could have an exogenous impact on family wealth.Therefore,this paper uses this reform to test the relationship between wealth and entrepreneurial behavior,using difference-in-difference and panel fixed effect model estimates the impact of housing reform on the entrepreneurial behavior of urban residents and finds that housing reform has significantly increased the entrepreneurial probability of affected individuals.The research conclusions are also consistent with the previous baseline estimation and robustness test.Fourth,look at the impact of entrepreneurship on individual utility.In terms of monetary returns,based on the benchmark estimation results using CHIP2008 data,it is found that there is a significant income premium for entrepreneurship relative to wage work.As the level of income rises,so does the level of income premium.After applying the treatment effect model and propensity score matching to solve potential sample selection problems,the study's conclusions remain robust.Taking into account the possible differences in income returns of different types of entrepreneurial activities,the entrepreneurship is divided into "self-employed" entrepreneurship and "employer-type" entrepreneurship based on the number of employees.It is found that only "employer-type" entrepreneurship has the significant positive impact on individual income.There is no significant income premium for 'self-employed' entrepreneurs.Individuals engaged in "employer-type" entrepreneurship generally enjoy sufficient employment opportunities in the labor market.Their motives for engaging in entrepreneurship are the active pursuit of higher income.Therefore,the premium income from entrepreneurship is more obvious.However,for individuals whose main purpose is to achieve employment and thus engage in "self-employment" entrepreneurship,they are often vulnerable groups in the job market.Self-employed entrepreneurship is often a passive choice for those individuals who lack formal employment opportunities.The main motivation for engaging in entrepreneurship is to achieve employment,so the increase in income from entrepreneurial activities is not obvious for them.In order to ensure the robustness of the estimation results,this paper further introduces longitudinal data of CHNS and re-estimates the monetary returns of entrepreneurial ventures using the panel fixed effect model.The research conclusions are consistent with the benchmark estimates.As for non-monetary returns,again based on CHIP2008 data,this paper measures individual non-monetary returns using working hours,income satisfaction,and job satisfaction.The entrepreneur's work time and income satisfaction are significantly higher than the wage earners,but there is no significant difference in the degree of job satisfaction.This may be due to job satisfaction not only depends on the level of income,but also on the amount of time and effort,income uncertainty and other factors.After considering the sample selection problem,the above conclusions are still robust.Further distinguish the impact of different types of entrepreneurial activities on non-monetary returns,it is found that "self-employed" entrepreneurs work longer hours and have higher income satisfaction than wage earners,but there is no significant difference in job satisfaction with wage earners;while "employer-type" entrepreneurial work hours are significantly higher than wage earners,job satisfaction is significantly lower than the latter,and there is no significant difference in income satisfaction between them.The above-mentioned benchmark estimates have many limitations: First,CHIP2008 is cross-sectional data and cannot effectively solve self-selection problems.Second,when estimating the non-monetary returns of entrepreneurial ventures,more than 90% of valid samples are heads of households.Therefore,the estimation results are not representative.Therefore,the findings of this paper do not focus on the results of the baseline estimation.This paper further introduces CLDS data for robustness test.The study finds that entrepreneurs' working hours and income satisfaction are significantly higher than wage earners,but job satisfaction and life satisfaction did not differ significantly from wage earners.Further considering the heterogeneous impact of different types of entrepreneurial activities on non-monetary returns,it is found that non-monetary returns of "self-employed" entrepreneurs and wage earners are not significantly different in most cases,but non-monetary returns of "employer-type" entrepreneurs are generally significantly higher than wage earners.Based on the above conclusions,this paper puts forward some policy recommendations on promoting the level of entrepreneurial activity and optimizing the entrepreneurial environment:First,optimize the financial environment,ease credit constraints,and promote residents' entrepreneurial behavior;Second,focus on supporting small and medium-sized entrepreneurs to improve their income distribution;Third,optimize the entrepreneurial structure and realize the transformation from "self-employed" entrepreneurship to "employee-oriented" entrepreneurship. |
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