Cynicism Starts Young: Age and Entrepreneurship over Transition

Studies of self-employment determinants in developed market economies comprise the effects of business cycle, changing social structures or legal framework, industrial organization regulations and government policies. This paper contributes to the literature by analysing the cyclical patterns of self-employment determinants taking into account both the trends associated with the transition and the variability induced by economic and labour market fluctuations. We construct a consistent panel of entrepreneurship choice models based on consecutive quarterly labour force surveys for Poland - a country with nearly highest self-employment rates in CEECs and the EU - across the time span 1995q1-2008q4 and trace changes in the marginal effects estimators. We find that the notion of self-employment as survival strategy emphasised previously in the literature exhibits stronger in the periods of the labour market contraction. We also demonstrate that young university graduates prefer wage employment to entrepreneurship.self-employment, transition, cyclicality, selection models

Known Knowns and Known Unknowns of Immigrant Self-employment. Selected issues

The paper presents a review of selected definitional issues, theoretical concepts and most recent empirical evidence related to the phenomenon of immigrant self-employment. Based on the appraisal of gathered material it also points to possible areas of development of future research in the field.migration, self-employment, ethnic entrepreneurship, middleman minority, ethnic enclave, literature review, state of the art

International Migration and the Choice of Self-employment

This thesis explores three notions related to the choice of self-employment as a labor market strategy among international migrants. The choice of the topic is motivated by the presumption that self-employment, on top if international labor migration, facilitates the reduction of the inefficiency of the international division of labor. In search of proof for this general hypothesis, the thesis contributes to exiting literature by merging two strands of work. On one hand, it relies on the concepts and methods related to the economics of migration. On the other hand, it takes advantage of the developments in the field of self-employment economics. In light of the gaps identified in existing literature, three operational hypotheses are formulated and tested in three subsequent chapters of the thesis. The first empirical chapter aims to answer the question whether immigrant self-employment is an income-maximizing choice. As simple as it seems, to the best of the author’s knowledge, such a hypothesis has not been empirically tested before. By means of Propensity Score Matching we find statistical twins in the migrant and non-migrant groups, what allows to obtain reliable estimates of the earnings gap. The results show that, indeed, immigrant self-employment is more profitable than employment in the country of origin. Furthermore, it is also proven that it may be even more profitable than wage-employment at the destination. Given the results of the first empirical analysis, the subsequent chapter tests whether immigrant self-employment is driven by labor market discrimination, i.e. whether it is a remedy for the internal labor market imperfections in the host country. This is found to be true, yet only when immigrants' earnings from self-employment actually exceed those from wage-employment. Additionally, the findings of this chapter suggest that the extent of labor market discrimination of immigrants highly depends on the location and the group of reference considered for the analysis of discriminatory wage differences. The third operational hypothesis deals with ethnic economies as an environment which enables immigrants to succeed in business in a foreign country. Existing literature emphasizes the beneficial role of ethnic economies. The contribution of this thesis is that it also explores whether ethnic economies are not sources of business competition at the same time. The hypothesis formulated for this analysis states that ethnic competition decreases, while ethnic complementarity increases the returns to business activity. The general finding of is that ethnic competition may either be benign or detrimental to profits, depending on the extent of ethnic market saturation. As far as ethnic complementarity is concerned, the conducted research shows that, as such, it does not significantly affect returns to ethnic entrepreneurship, but that the relative wealth of one's co-ethnics does have a positive effect on the profitability of local ethnic businesses. The studies conducted within the scope this doctoral research affirm the general hypothesis of this thesis. From this perspective the main conclusions of this thesis are the following: by reallocating to markets where one's skills, abilities or knowledge are relatively scarce, or add to the diversity of supplied products or services, individuals may experience significant income gains; the profitability of immigrant self-employment may not only allow to overcome the labor market inefficiencies related to the international division of labor, but also to the internal market divide; the multilateral benefits of immigrant self-employment can be obtained by letting migrants cluster and take advantage of their cultural and social capital. For both methodological and conceptual reasons the research focuses predominantly on Puerto Rican migration to the US. However, each empirical analysis provides a study of external validity of the obtained results

Role of Donor Activating KIR–HLA Ligand–Mediated NK Cell Education Status in Control of Malignancy in Hematopoietic Cell Transplant Recipients

AbstractSome cancers treated with allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) are sensitive to natural killer cell (NK) reactivity. NK function depends on activating and inhibitory receptors and is modified by NK education/licensing effect and mediated by coexpression of inhibitory killer-cell immunoglobulin-like receptor (KIR) and its corresponding HLA I ligand. We assessed activating KIR (aKIR)-based HLA I–dependent education capacity in donor NKs in 285 patients with hematological malignancies after HSCT from unrelated donors. We found significantly adverse progression-free survival (PFS) and time to progression (TTP) in patients who received transplant from donors with NKs educated by C1:KIR2DS2/3, C2:KIR2DS1, or Bw4:KIR3DS1 pairs (for PFS: hazard ratio [HR], 1.70; P = .0020, Pcorr = .0039; HR, 1.54; P = .020, Pcorr = .039; HR, 1.51; P = .020, Pcorr = .040; and for TTP: HR, 1.82; P = .049, Pcorr = .096; HR, 1.72; P = .096, Pcorr = .18; and HR, 1.65; P = .11, Pcorr = .20, respectively). Reduced PFS and TTP were significantly dependent on the number of aKIR-based education systems in donors (HR, 1.36; P = .00031, Pcorr = .00062; and HR, 1.43; P = .019, Pcorr = .038). Furthermore, the PFS and TTP were strongly adverse in patients with missing HLA ligand cognate with educating aKIR-HLA pair in donor (HR, 3.25; P = .00022, Pcorr = .00045; and HR, 3.82; P = .027, Pcorr = .054). Together, these data suggest important qualitative and quantitative role of donor NK education via aKIR-cognate HLA ligand pairs in the outcome of HSCT. Avoiding the selection of transplant donors with high numbers of aKIR-HLA-based education systems, especially for recipients with missing cognate ligand, is advisable

Immigrant Self-employment: Definitions, Concepts and Methods

The paper presents a review of selected definitional issues and theoretical concepts related to the phenomenon of immigrant self-employment. A chronological analysis of the developments of the academic discourse on the topic allows detecting the interconnections between various approaches and understanding their growing complexity. The inquiry is complemented with a review of most recent empirical studies, what enables an assessment of the applicability and usefulness of long-established concepts for framing contemporary studies. Based on the appraisal of gathered material this paper also points to the limitations and possible areas of development of future research in the field

Do Networks Do the Works? Towards Recognising (and Solving) a Migration-Entrepreneurship Conundrum

On the one hand, research shows that immigrant entrepreneurs find support for their business among other immigrants, within immigrant enclaves. On the other hand, the economic theory of industrial organisation clearly suggests that business concentration is detrimental to profits, which in turn creates disincentives for potential newcomers. This article aims to find an answer to this conundrum. It asks three questions: is business competition present at all among immigrants? If yes, then is it the market mechanism that reconciles the existence of immigrant business solidarity with immigrant business competition? And what determines the fine line between generating positive and negative externalities for other immigrant businesses? Through an analysis of migration networks among immigrant businessmen, this research concludes that both processes might in fact occur. The factor that determines whether it is one or the other is the specificity of the industry in which a given business operates

Internal vs external migration in post-Soviet space

The paper addresses the distinctiveness of migration flows in the post-Soviet space east of the European Union: the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and Georgia. Population mobility within this region is hypothesized to differ from extra-regional population movements due to the common institutional past of these states, all of which were once the USSR republics. Within the framework of the migration systems theory, the paper offers a quantitative analysis of the scale and mechanics of cross-border population mobility in the region. By means of island analysis, it examines the intensity and distinctiveness of intra-regional migration flows relative to those between the region and third countries. Next, an econometric gravity model has been applied to identify the main drivers of migration flows in the region. The resultant findings show that the distinctiveness of the intra-regional migration processes is questionable or at best rather weak as mobility of people from and to the CIS region is relatively high. Thus, it is argued that the existence of the ‘post-Soviet migration system’ should not be treated axiomatically. The region is increasingly integrated into the international division of labour through trade and capital mobility and the cross-border mobility of people also reflects this globalization trend

Migration management in the EU's eastern neighbourhood

In this article we review migration policies that have evolved in the eastern neighbourhood of the European Union, that is, in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States. We ask how they compare with those that have been adopted by European Union member states and migrant settler countries such as Australia. We also use this regional perspective to comment on the application of the systems methodology in migration studies

Intra- vs. extra-regional migration in the post-Soviet space

The paper addresses the distinctiveness of migration flows in the post-Soviet space east of the European Union: the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and Georgia. Population mobility within this region is hypothesized to differ from extra-regional population movements due to the common institutional past of these states, all of which were once the USSR republics. It has been claimed that CIS countries form a distinct post-Soviet migration system. Within the framework of the migration systems theory, this paper offers a quantitative analysis of the scale and mechanics of cross-border population mobility in the region. By means of network analysis, it examines the intensity and distinctiveness of intra-regional migration flows relative to those between the region and third countries. We have also used an econometric gravity model to identify the main drivers of migration flows in the region. The resultant findings show that the existence of the post-Soviet migration system is questionable and should not be treated axiomatically. This is because the mobility of people from and to the CIS region is relatively high, and the region is increasingly integrated into the international division of labor through trade and capital mobility. The cross-border mobility of people also reflects this globalization trend