OECD Economics Department Working Papers
The views expressed in these papers are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the OECD or of the governments of its member countries.
- ISSN: 18151973 (online)
- https://doi.org/10.1787/18151973
To what extent do policies contribute to self-employment?
Using cross-country time series panel regressions for the last two decades, this paper seeks to identify the main policy and institutional factors that explain the share of self-employment across European countries. It looks at the aggregate share of self-employed as well as its breakdown by age, skill and gender. The generosity of unemployment benefits, and to a lesser extent, spending on active labour market policies appear to be robust determinants of the long-term share of self-employed in European countries. No significant relation is found between the stringency of employment protection and aggregate self-employment. However, there are significant, and oppositely signed, impacts on high- and low-skilled self-employed separately. Both the tax wedge and the minimum wage appear to be positively related to the share of self-employed in the long term, but the relation holds for some categories of workers only.
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