Persistence in Self-Employment Rates before the Great Lockdown: The Case of the UK

A growing body of empirical literature—both on the micro and macro scale—is devoted to exploring the existence of hysteresis—or at least persistence—in self-employment, i.e., whether policy, economic or external shocks have transitory or persistent effects on the probability of survival, and in turn...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: López Pérez, Elisabeth, Rodríguez Santiago, Ana María, Congregado Ramírez de Aguilera, Emilio
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2020
País:España
Institución:Universidad de Huelva (UHU)
Repositorio:Arias Montano. Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Huelva
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:ariasmontano.uhu.es:10272/19024
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10272/19024
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Persistence
Unobserved components model
Time series models
Business cycles
Self-employment
Entrepreneurship
UK
Descripción
Sumario:A growing body of empirical literature—both on the micro and macro scale—is devoted to exploring the existence of hysteresis—or at least persistence—in self-employment, i.e., whether policy, economic or external shocks have transitory or persistent effects on the probability of survival, and in turn, on the natural rate of self-employment. In aggregate time series studies, the usual method to address this issue has been to look for unit roots by using alternative tests or by using unobservable components models. In this research, we performed a battery of tests and competing approaches to check the robustness of our results with UK self-employment time series. The UK is a suitable case for study because the recent evolution of the UK self-employment rate figures shows a steady growth since the beginning of the millennium. This long-term rise in UK self-employment has attracted the attention of scholars, at least, before the Great Lockdown. We find evidence of hysteresis, while business cycle output variations significantly affect self-employment rates. The article discusses the implications of the findings.