The Migration of Technical Workers – Out now

Michael S. Dahl and Olav Sorenson

Using panel data on the Danish population, we estimated the revealed preferences of scientists and engineers for the places in which they choose to work. Our results indicate that these technical workers exhibit substantial sensitivity to differences in wages but that they have even stronger preferences for living close to family and friends. The magnitude of these preferences, moreover, suggests that the greater geographic mobility of scientists and engineers, relative to the population as a whole, stems from more pronounced variation across regions in the wages that they can expect. These results remain robust to estimation on a sample of individuals who must select new places of work for reasons unrelated to their preferences—those who had been employed at establishments that discontinued operations.

Michael S. Dahl and Olav Sorenson (2010) “The migration of technical workers”,Journal of Urban Economics, Vol. 67 (1), pp. 33-45 [DOI Link]

New book published (in Danish)

Jagten på fremtidens nye vækstvirksomheder

Jagten på fremtidens nye vækstvirksomheder

Nyetablerede virksomheder bidrager årligt netto med 60.000 nye job til dansk økonomi, mens ældre virksomheder i gennemsnit siger farvel til flere personer, end de ansætter. Det understreger vigtigheden af nye virksomheder på arbejdsmarkedet.

De mest succesfulde iværksættere har typisk stor brancheerfaring. Særligt interessante er de såkaldte spin-off-iværksættere, som kommer direkte fra en eksisterende virksomhed i samme branche. Disse iværksættere står bag omkring 30 % af de nye virksomheder, og de har større sandsynlighed for at overleve i længere tid og blive vækstiværksættere. Dvs. iværksættere, der skaber høj beskæftigelse og værdi til samfundet. Overlevelsen hos de nye virksomheder er central og en vigtig forudsætning for en langvarig positiv effekt på samfundsøkonomien.

Undersøgelsen er finansieret af Rockwool Fonden. Bogens resultater bygger bl.a. på en gennemgang af karakteristika ved mere end 26.000 iværksættere fra 1994-2006, suppleret med en spørgeskemaundersøgelse blandt 10.000 danskere.

Undersøgelsen peger på, at beskæftigelsen kan udbygges, hvis de nye virksomheders potentiale styrkes, så de vokser mere. Vi kan med andre ord øge gevinsten uden, at der nødvendigvis etableres flere virksomheder, hvis vi fokuserer på de virksomheder, som overlever bedre, og hvis ejere har en større sandsynlighed for at blive vækstiværksættere. Bogen går derfor videre med at præsentere de personlige karakteristika hos de iværksættere, som giver den største sandsynlighed for overlevelse og vækst.

Spørgeskemaundersøgelsen viser, at spin-off-iværksætterne udover deres brancheerfaring især adskiller sig fra de øvrige iværksættere på følgende dimensioner: De er yngre, og de har en højere indkomst på det tidspunkt, hvor de bliver iværksættere. De investerer mere tid i deres arbejdsliv, og de lægger væsentligt større vægt på selvstændighed. Derfor starter de oftere virksomheder, som er uafhængige af andre virksomheder. Spin-off-iværksætterne bruger ligeledes deres netværk mere aktivt og har forbindelse til flere iværksættere gennem deres netværk.

Michael S. Dahl, Pernille G. Jensen og Kristian Nielsen. ”Jagten på fremtidens nye vækstvirksomheder”, udkom den 19. november 2009 på DJØF Forlag

Links:

The Embedded Entrepreneur – Out now

Michael S. Dahl and Olav Sorenson

Using comprehensive data on the Danish population, this paper examines the determinants of entrepreneurs’ choices of where to locate their new ventures. Our findings suggest that entrepreneurs place much more emphasis on being close to family and friends than on regional characteristics that might influence the performance of their ventures when deciding where to locate those businesses. Two factors could explain our findings: On the one hand, entrepreneurs may simply value proximity to family and friends. On the other hand, these relationships may help them to assemble the assets and to recruit the personnel that they need to succeed in their ventures. Our results suggest that the former plays the greater role in entrepreneurs’ location choices.

Michael S. Dahl and Olav Sorenson (2009) “The embedded entrepreneur”, European Management Review, Vol. 6, pp. 172-181 [DOI Link] – Download here

Whom do new firms hire?

Michael S. Dahl and Steven Klepper

Using the matched employer-employee data set for Denmark and information on the founders of new firms, we analyze the hiring choices of all new firms that entered in 1995-2001. We develop a theoretical model in which the quality of a firm’s employees determines its average cost, a firm’s productivity is based on its pre-entry experience and persistent shocks, and over time firms learn about their productivity. The model predicts that more productive firms are larger and hire more talented employees, which gives rise to various predictions about how pre-entry experience, firm growth rates, and firm size influence the wages firms pay to their early hires. We find that beginning with the time of entry, larger firms consistently pay higher wages to their new hires. These are firms with greater survival prospects at the time of entry based on the pre-entry backgrounds of their founders and that grow at greater rates over time, both of which are predictive of the wages paid to new hires from the time of entry onward. Our findings suggest workers are allocated to firms according to their abilities, which can give rise to enduring firm capabilities.

The Social Attachment to Place

Michael S. Dahl and Olav Sorenson

Many theories either implicitly or explicitly assume that individuals readily move to locations that improve their financial well being. Other forces, however, counteract these tendencies; for example, people often wish to remain close to family and friends. We introduce a methodology for determining how individuals weight these countervailing forces, and estimate how both financial incentives and social factors influence the probability of geographic mobility in the Danish population from 2002 to 2003. Our results suggest that individuals respond to opportunities for higher pay elsewhere, but that their sensitivity to this factor pales in comparison to their preferences for living near family and friends.

Paper has been accepted for Social Forces, February 25, 2010.

Home Sweet Home? Location Choice of Entrepreneurs and Performance of their Ventures

Michael S. Dahl and Olav Sorenson

We argue that social capital places strong constraints on an entrepreneur’s ability to found a firm in a region in which he or she does not have connections. We examine this thesis using comprehensive data on the Danish population and find evidence broadly consistent with this claim. Entrepreneurs tend to open businesses in regions in which they have deep roots (“home” regions). We further find that their ventures perform better (survive longer) when they locate in these home regions. The value of social capital moreover appears substantial, similar in magnitude to the value of having prior experience in the industry entered (i.e. human capital).

The Devil Dwells in the Tails: A Quantile Regression Approach to Firm Growth

Toke Reichstein, Michael S. Dahl, Bernd Ebersberger and Morten B. Jensen

This paper explores the firm growth rate distribution in a Gibrat’s Law context. The aim is to provide an empirical exploration of the determinants of firm growth. The work is novel in two respects. First, rather than limiting the analysis to focus on the conditional mean growth level, we investigate the complete shape of the distribution. Second, we show that the differences in the firm growth rate process between large and small firms are highly circumstantial. That industry dynamics have a substantial influence on the relationship between firm size and firm growth. The data used includes more than 9000 Danish firms from manufacturing, services and construction. We provide robust evidence indicating that firm growth studies should be less obsessed with explaining means and instead look to other parts of the firm growth rate distribution.

Are You Experienced? Prior Experience of Managers and the Survival of New Organisations

Michael S. Dahl and Toke Reichstein

This paper investigates the relationship between the experiences of managers and the likelihood of survival of their new firms. We take advantage of a comprehensive data-set covering the entire Danish labour market from 1980-2000. This is used to trace the activities of top ranked members of new firms prior to the founding and follow the fate of their firms after the founding.

Michael S. Dahl and Toke Reichstein (2007), “Are You Experienced? Prior Experience and the Survival of New Organizations“, Industry and Innovation. Vol. 14, No. 5, pp. 497-511. ISSN: 1366-2716. [DOI Link]