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PublicationArticle (with peer review)

Entrepreneurship and income inequality

Abstract

Entrepreneurship research highlights entrepreneurship as a simultaneous source of enhanced income mobility for some but a potential source of poverty for others. Research on inequality has furthered new types of models to decompose and problematize various sources of income inequality, but attention to entrepreneurship as an increasingly prevalent occupational choice in these models remains scant. This paper seeks to bridge these two literatures using regression-based income decomposition among entrepreneurs and paid workers distinguishing between self-employed (SE) and incorporated self-employed (ISE) individuals in Sweden. We find that the proportion of self-employed in the workforce increases income dispersion by way of widening the bottom end of the distribution, whereas the proportion of incorporated self-employed contributes to income dispersion at the top end of the distribution. Implications for research are discussed.
Related content: Working paper No. 281

Halvarsson, D., Korpi, M., & Wennberg, K. (2018). Entrepreneurship and income inequality. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 145, 275-293. DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2017.11.003

Details

Author: Halvarsson, D., Korpi, M., & Wennberg, K.
Publication year: 2018
Published in: Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization

Related

Ph.D.
Daniel Halvarsson
+460760184541daniel.halvarsson@ratio.se
Professor
Karl Wennberg
+46705105366karl.wennberg@ratio.se

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Article (with peer review)

Qualitative Comparative Analysis in Entrepreneurship Research

Rönkkö, M., Maula, M., Wennberg, K.

Publication year

2025

Published in

Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice (ETP)

Abstract

Configurational research has great promise in entrepreneurship. There are few universal laws or relationships that hold under all circumstances. More often, optimal entrepreneurial outcomes are contingent on many factors. Consequently, configurational analysis using qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) has become increasingly popular. However, methodological research in sociology and political science has raised concerns about possible false positive findings produced by this method. In this editorial, we explore the potential and the common pitfalls of QCA in entrepreneurship research, as well as guidelines for its use.

City size, employer concentration, and wage income inequality

Halvarsson, D., & Korpi, M.

Publication year

2025

Published in

Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy (IFAU)

Abstract

This study investigates the relationship between the urban wage premium and employer concentration using Swedish full population employer-employee data. Departing from an AKM modeling framework to distinguish worker from firm specific heterogeneity – a measure of rent-sharing – we then measure the urban wage premium using differences in the estimated firm fixed effects at the level of local industries, nested within local labor markets. Our results suggest that labor market employer concentration, as calculated using the Hirschman-Herfindahl index and a leave-one-out instrumental variable design, can account for a significant share of the estimated urban wage premium (UWP). Addressing city-level wage income inequality by applying our model to different segments of the local labor market income distribution, we find that while the UWP pertains to all income segments, it is largest for top-income levels (above the 90th percentile), and within this segment employer concentration also has the largest explanatory power. Thus, while being an important explanatory factor for all percentiles of the local income distribution, a relatively lower employer concentration within larger cities, and vice versa, higher concentration within smaller cities, primarily help explain the variance of top wages within these cities/labor markets.

Article (with peer review)

Seeking opportunity or socio-economic status? Housing and school choice in Sweden

Andersson, F. W., Mutgan, S., Norgren, A., & Wennberg, K.

Publication year

2025

Published in

Urban Studies, 62(2), 367-386.

Abstract

Residential choices and school choices are intimately connected in school systems where school admission relies on proximity rules. In countries with universal school choice systems, however, it remains an open question whether families’ residential mobility is tied to the choice of their children’s school, and with what consequences. Using administrative data on all children approaching primary-school age in Sweden, we study to what extent families’ financial and socio-economic background affects mobility between neighbourhoods and the characteristics of schools chosen by moving families. Our findings show that families do utilise the housing market as an instrument for school choice over the year preceding their firstborn child starting school. However, while families who move do ‘climb the social ladder’ by moving to neighbourhoods with more households of higher socio-economic status, their chosen schools do not appear to be of higher academic quality compared to those their children would otherwise have attended.

Read the article here.