From hot to cold: A spatial analysis of self-employment in the United States

Abstract

Self-employment is a geographical phenomenon influenced by national and regional contexts. However, the study of both contexts combined is scarce in the literature on the formation of regional clusters. Using panel data from the USA for 1998-2018, we perform different techniques to study both contexts combined, including exploratory spatial data analysis and dynamic spatial estimations. We find evidence of spatial dependence of selfemployment rates, although it has decreased over time. Results also suggest that most of the spatial dependence is explained by the clusters of regions with low entrepreneurship activity, and that clusters formed by highly entrepreneurial regions are the most sensitive to fluctuations in the national selfemployment rate.