Opportunity versus Necessity: Understanding the Heterogeneity of Female Micro-Entrepreneurs
利用墨西哥女性创业者的独特数据，比较机会型与生存型创业者在认知技能、非认知技能和管理实践上的差异，发现机会型创业者表现更好、技能更高，但可观测特征难以区分两类群体，工具变量估计证实机会型创业者绩效和管理更优。
Entrepreneurs that voluntarily choose to start a business because they are able to identify a good business opportunity and act on it -- opportunity entrepreneurs -- might be different along various dimensions from those who are forced to become entrepreneurs because of lack of other alternatives -- necessity entrepreneurs. To provide evidence on these differences, this paper exploits a unique data set covering a wide array of characteristics, including cognitive skills, non-cognitive skills and managerial practices, for a large sample of female entrepreneurs in Mexico. Descriptive results show that on average opportunity entrepreneurs have better performance and higher skills than necessity entrepreneurs. A discriminant analysis reveals that discrimination is difficult to achieve based on these observables, which suggests the existence of unobservables driving both the decision to become an opportunity entrepreneur and performance. Thus, an instrumental variables estimation is conducted, using state economic growth in the year the business was set up as an instrument for opportunity, to confirm that opportunity entrepreneurs have higher performance and better management practices.