Wal-Mart and Self-Employment (or Entrepreneurship)

See Also:

• Wal-Mart and Social Capital (or Civic Capacity)
• Wal-Mart and Poverty
• Other Points About Wal-Mart

This study finds that the presence of Wal-Mart stores reduces the number of self-employed workers as a share of the total labor force in communities, on the one hand, and that it also raises the returns to self-employment endeavors, on the other. This finding is consistent with Joseph Schumpeter's prediction of creative destruction in an entrepreneurial, market-based economy.

To cite this study:
Goetz, Stephan J. (Sept. 2006), "The Place-Based Structural Determinants and Effects of Self-Employment," Report to the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. The Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development, Penn State University, University Park, PA, 64 pp.