فرهنگ و کارآفرینی؟ آفریقایی آمریکایی و مهاجران خود اشتغال در ایالات متحده

This paper analyzes the evolution of African American entrepreneurship by comparing the patterns of development of African American entrepreneurship and immigrant entrepreneurship. Whereas most literature focuses on African American culture as the reason for limited entrepreneurial success compared to certain immigrant groups, this paper examines how social, economic, and political forces have adversely influenced the development of Black entrepreneurship compared to various immigrant groups. Using 90 years of census data, we also find empirical support consistent with our assertion that many immigrants have resources (not available to native non-Whites) that facilitate entrepreneurship.

Self-employment is a vital facet of the United States economy. Notably, entrepreneurship has been a means for the economic advancement of numerous ethnic groups. Policy makers and scholars alike consider self-employment as an alternative to unemployment and a route out of poverty. Also, small business owners have significant political influence in the United States. Accordingly, the under-representation of some racial groups in business ownership (see Table 1) implies that these groups may possess less political power than is warranted given their population share (Fairlie and Meyer, 2000). The relatively low historical rate of African American entrepreneurship is a well-known fact (see Table 2).2Fairlie and Meyer (2000) studied patterns in self-employment among White and Black men from 1910 to 1990. With almost a century of data, they uncovered some unexpected findings (Fairlie and Meyer, 2000): • In the period from 1910 to 1990, the Black self-employment rate generally followed the same direction of change as the White self-employment rate. • For 80 years, the self-employment rate for Black men was consistently at a level of approximately 1/3 of the White rate. • Based on evidence from simulations using a simple intergenerational model of self-employment, Fairlie and Meyer concluded that if not for “continuing factors” reducing Black self-employment (e.g., discrimination or capital that is passed intergenerationally), racial convergence in self-employment rates could occur within two generations. Numerous researchers have tried to develop explanations for this huge, 100 year old, discrepancy between Black and White entrepreneurship levels that, according to Fairlie and Meyer, feasibly could be eradicated within a few generations (for examples, see Borjas and Bronars, 1989 and Kawaguchi, 2005). Using regression analysis and the same decomposition methodology used by Smith and Welch (1989), Fairlie and Meyer (2000) concluded that racial convergence in education levels and trends in demographic factors (including the Great Black Migration: 1915–1920) did not have large effects on the trend in the racial gap in the self-employment rate. They found that the large racial gap in self-employment throughout the 20th century was primarily due to the low Black self-employment rates within all industries and not simply the result of Blacks being over-represented in sectors characterized by low self-employment. Also, their empirical findings indicated that neither lower relative wages nor the initial lack of business experience could help to explain the current low levels of Black self-employment. While low levels of education, low asset levels, smaller probabilities of having self-employed parents, demographic trends, and discrimination all have been cited as reasons for the limited level of entrepreneurship in the African American community, much of the “social capital” literature addressing African American entrepreneurship concentrates on African American culture as the primary reason for the paucity of Black entrepreneurs. For example, Light (1980) once argued that Black communities are too individualistic and do not have the networking and solidarity that support business in other communities (Feagin and Imani, 1994). General comparisons between African American and immigrant entrepreneurs are common. “Asian Americans are seen as the classic small-business success story while scholars and journalists often address Black entrepreneurship by asking What’s wrong with Blacks?” (Bates, 1997). Conflicting and disparate interpretations of the entrepreneurial performance of various ethnic groups typify the conclusions made by Light (1980) and others. Thus, in order to better understand the patterns and sources of entrepreneurial success, this paper compares African American entrepreneurship with that of various immigrant groups. To the best of our knowledge, there is no comparison covering a time horizon longer than 20 years. Utilizing data from a 90 year time span, this paper will analyze the differences between native Black and immigrant entrepreneurship. Unless otherwise noted, all statistics and analysis provided throughout the paper are based upon the 1% sample of the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS).3 The IPUMS contains all U.S. decennial censuses taken from 1850 through 2000 with two notable exceptions. The 1890 census was destroyed in a fire and the 1930 census is not yet included due to privacy restrictions. Additionally, we cannot utilize the pre-1910 census data for most of our analyses, since self-employment information was not collected. The remainder of the paper proceeds as follows. Section 2 discusses the cultural hypothesis. Sections 3 reviews African American entrepreneurship. Section 4 discusses immigrant entrepreneurship. Section 5 contains an econometric analysis of the significance of various structural factors with respect to entrepreneurship. Section 5 provides our concluding observations.

Due to slavery, the starting point for the economic progress of Blacks in the U.S. was extremely low. After emancipation, Blacks were largely illiterate, were relatively unskilled, had little wealth, earned subsistence level incomes, were denied equal protection of person and property, and were excluded from governmental decision making (Higgs, 1977). Only during the last 40 years, have Blacks experienced an existence free of legally sanctioned discrimination and much progress has been made. However, racism still exists in our society and continues to serve as a formidable obstacle to Blacks’ full and equal participation in the national economy. There has been much focus on the declining significance of race within the business sector. Yet, the continued pervasiveness of discrimination against African Americans is being documented by a rising number of researchers (see for example, Royster, 2003). Specifically, there is an expanding body of literature that suggests there has been no such decline with respect to entrepreneurship. 33 By examining the trends in African American and immigrant entrepreneurship, we try to identify non-cultural sources for the relatively low African American entrepreneurship rate. The long, arduous, and diverse road of the African American entrepreneur has been shaped by slavery and institutional racism balanced against ingenuity and perseverance. While there is a history dotted with success stories, Black entrepreneurs still struggle to even approach the success of most immigrant groups. The ratio of Black to White entrepreneurship has remained amazingly steady over the past century. The reasons for Black under-representation may have shifted over time. Yet, there is one constant theme. Much of the conventional literature tries to account for this situation by suggesting that it is the result of cultural differences. However, comparisons with immigrant groups points to a different explanation. Consistently throughout history, discriminatory practices, institutions, and legislation have restricted African American entrepreneurs at every stage of business development. In spite of continuing racial discrimination, a strong interest in creating businesses can be found in African American communities today. There is evidence that Black business ownership produces non-economic benefits (Boyd, 1990b). “The social welfare effect of Black entrepreneurial activity is indirect, operating through sociological variables. This finding is consistent with the social buffers argument for it implies that the visibility of Black firms may be more important than their actual economic performance.” (Boyd, 1990b). Given the plight of the African American in business, perhaps this is the one valid “cultural reason” that we have observed progress at all.