Does Crime Deter South Africans from Self-Employment?

Arbeitspapier

An often-heard argument is that South Africa's very high crime rate is the main reason for the country's small share of business ownership. Combining a fixed-effects model with an instrumental variable approach, we estimate the effect of crime on self-employment and business performance using a matched data set of census, survey and police data. In contrast to previous studies, which focus on perceived rather than actual crime and often deal with geographically limited areas, we do not find robust evidence that high crime rates have a negative impact on self-employment. Although the impact of crime is statistically significant and negative, it is economically small. Moreover, our results suggest a positive rather than a negative relationship between robbery and burglary and sales and average business profits. These results suggest that crime may not be in general a serious threat for small businesses in low and middle-income countries.

Angaben zum Objekt

• Sprache: Englisch

Verweise und Beziehungen

• Erschienen in: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 10280

Klassifikation und Themen

• Klassifikation: Wirtschaft ; Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis ; Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity ; Informal Labor Markets ; Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior: General ; Entrepreneurship ; Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
• Thema: crime ; self-employment ; microenterprises ; South Africa ; informal sector

Beteiligte, Orts- und Zeitangaben

• Ereignis: Geistige Schöpfung
• (wer): Grabrucker, Katharina ; Grimm, Michael
• Ereignis: Veröffentlichung
• (wer): Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
• (wo): Bonn
• (wann): 2016

Weitere Informationen

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/149139
• Letzte Aktualisierung: 10.03.2025, 11:42 MEZ