Credit Constraints, Job Mobility and Entrepreneurship: Evidence from a Property Reform in China.

in

July 2008
Shing-yi Wang
in Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 94, No. 2, 532 – 551.

This paper provides new evidence on the impact of private property rights on entrepreneurship. I explore this issue in the context of a housing reform in urban China that allowed state employees renting state-owned housing the opportunity to buy their homes at subsidized prices. Using the reform as an exogenous change in the capital constraints and mobility costs that influence individuals’ entry into entrepreneurship, my estimates suggest that the property reform increased self-employment. I develop a model of job choice to test two mechanisms that might explain how the reform increased entrepreneurship. I find that the reform increased the ability of individuals to finance entrepreneurial ventures by allowing them to capitalize on the value of the real estate. The unbundling of housing benefits from state employment also contributed to the increase in entrepreneurship by facilitating labor mobility out of the state sector.