Recent research has suggested that the reduction of entry regulation can promote firm entry and job creation, but little is known about the quality of firms and jobs created through these reforms. To shed light on this question, we employ data from Portugal, a country which implemented one of the most dramatic and thorough policies of entry deregulation in the industrialized world. The impact of these major changes can be traced with a matched employer-employee database that provides unusually rich information on the quality of founders and employees associated with the new firms. Our assessment indicates that the short term consequences of the reform were just as one would predict with a standard economic model of entrepreneurship: The reform resulted in increased firm formation and employment, but mostly among "marginal firms" that would have been most readily deterred by existing heavy entry regulations. These marginal firms were typically small, owned by relatively poorly-educated entrepreneurs, operating in the low-tech sector (agriculture, construction, and retail trade). These firms were also less likely to survive their first two years than comparable firms that entered prior to the reform. The social impact of entry deregulation may be limited by the quality of the firms it creates.
We evaluate the consequences of a recent regulatory reform in Portugal, which substantially reduced the cost of firm entry. Our analysis uses matched employer–employee data, which provide unusually rich information on the characteristics of founders and employees associated with new firms before and after the reform. We find that the short‐term consequences of the reform were as one would predict with a standard economic model of entrepreneurship: the reform resulted in increased firm formation and employment, but mostly among ‘marginal firms’ that would have been most readily deterred by existing heavy entry regulations. These marginal firms were typically small, owned by relatively poorly educated entrepreneurs, and operating in low‐technology sectors (agriculture, construction and retail trade). In comparison to firms that entered in the absence of the reform, these marginal firms were less likely to survive their first two years.
We examine the impact of corporate taxation on entrepreneurship, using a quasi-natural experiment, which substantially reduced the corporate tax rate for start-ups located in inland municipalities in Portugal. Using a difference-in-differences approach and IV regression, we find that the tax reform increased firm entry and new firm job creation. The entrepreneurs who took advantage of this tax reform are relatively older, and are better-educated individuals. Their start-ups are relatively larger, more productive, and are more likely to survive the first 3 years. These findings suggest that corporate taxation is an imperative constraint for entrepreneurship, particularly for high-quality entrepreneurs. These better-educated individuals find it easier to overcome the hurdles of tax legislation and to make use of the opportunities created by a specific tax reform.
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