TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Lee, Jun Yeong
AU  - Winters, John V.
        TI  - Too Cold to Venture There? January Temperature and Immigrant Self-Employment across the United States
        PY  - 2021/Dec/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 14941
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/publications/dp14941
        AB  - Immigrant entrepreneurs are critical to regional and national economies. Immigrants in the USA have higher self-employment rates than natives, and immigrants have made outsized contributions as founders of numerous highly successful firms. However, we document that immigrant self-employment rates vary considerably across areas of the USA. Our main measure is the percentage of immigrant workers in an area who are self-employed; i.e., the self- employment rate for the foreign-born. 
Areas with colder winter temperatures have especially low self-employment rates among their immigrant populations compared to other areas of the USA. This relationship holds for numerous sub-samples of immigrants and is not driven by any particular group. The relationship persists after controlling for numerous individual and local area characteristics. Immigrant entrepreneurs appear to be especially forward-looking and responsive to warmer January temperature as a locational amenity. The results have important implications about the location choices of immigrant entrepreneurs.
        KW  - immigrants
KW  - entrepreneurship
KW  - self-employment
KW  - amenities
KW  - temperature
        ER  -