We study the effect of personal wealth on entrepreneurial decisions using data on mineral payments from Texas shale drilling to individuals throughout the United States. Large cash windfalls increase business formation by 0.8 to 2.1 percentage points, but do not affect transitions to self-employment. By contrast, cash windfalls significantly extend self-employment spells, but do not affect the duration of business ownership. Our findings help reconcile contrasting findings in prior work: liquidity constraints have different effects on entrepreneurial activity that may depend on the entrepreneur’s motivations.

中文翻译：

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个人财富，自营职业和企业所有权

我们使用从得克萨斯州页岩钻探到美国各地个人的矿物支付数据，研究了个人财富对企业决策的影响。大量的现金意外收获使业务形成增加了0.8至2.1个百分点，但不影响向自营职业的过渡。相比之下，现金暴利极大地扩展了自雇技能，但不影响企业所有权的持续时间。我们的发现有助于调和先前工作中的不同发现：流动性限制对企业家活动有不同的影响，这可能取决于企业家的动机。