Migration and self-employment: the case of internal migrants

In this paper, I compare the self-employment entry rate of internal migrants within the United States to that of individuals who have not moved. Internal migrants are defined as native born Americans who have migrated from one state to another. After controlling for a broad range of demographic and labor market characteristics, I find that Americans who have migrated to a state that does not border their initial state of residence are approximately 43% more likely to enter self-employment than Americans who have not moved. This higher rate of entry into self-employment among internal migrants remains robust to the inclusion of a wide range of controls. Since internal migrants are individuals who have made the decision to migrate, but are otherwise similar to native born non-migrants, this finding supports the idea that the higher self-employment entry rate among immigrants is driven in part by self-selection. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2023.