It is increasingly being recognized that different types of entrepreneurs exist with different performance levels and different contributions to the economy. Two common classifications of entrepreneurship types are based on professional status and start-up motive, where independent own-account workers are assumed to perform better than dependent self-employed and opportunity entrepreneurs are assumed to perform better than necessity entrepreneurs. However, these supposed performance differentials are seldomly tested or quantified. Using recent data drawn from the European Working Conditions Survey for the EU-28, we explore self-employment earnings (as an indicator of performance) across these different entrepreneurship types. Our results from OLS and multilevel linear regressions show that dependent self-employed workers are indeed observed to have significantly lower earnings than independent own-account workers, but the difference is only 10%, suggesting that the precarious nature of the dependent self-employed may be overstated in certain policy circles. Regarding start-up motive, our paper highlights the importance of distinguishing the group of entrepreneurs who simultaneously have both opportunity and necessity motives to start a business.

人们越来越认识到，不同类型的企业家存在不同的绩效水平和对经济的不同贡献。两种常见的创业类型分类是基于专业地位和创业动机，其中假设独立的个体经营者比依赖个体经营者的表现更好，而机会型创业者的表现则比必要创业者表现更好。然而，很少对这些假设的性能差异进行测试或量化。使用从欧盟 28 国的欧洲工作条件调查中提取的最新数据，我们探索了这些不同创业类型的自雇收入（作为绩效指标）。我们的 OLS 和多级线性回归结果表明，确实观察到依赖个体经营者的收入明显低于独立个体经营者，但差异仅为 10%，这表明依赖个体经营者的不稳定性质可能在某些政策圈中被夸大了。关于创业动机，我们的论文强调了区分同时具有创业动机和机会动机的企业家群体的重要性。