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、个体经营和企业所有权

我们使用德克萨斯州页岩钻探向全美个人支付的矿产支付数据，研究个人财富对创业决策的影响。巨额现金意外之财使企业形成增加了 0.8 到 2.1 个百分点，但不影响向自营职业的过渡。相比之下，现金意外之财显着延长了自营职业的时间，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对比发现：流动性限制对创业活动有不同的影响，这可能取决于创业者的动机。