2007/03/09 by Robert W. Fairlie, Robert W. Fairlie, Alicia Robb +1 · 6 citations
Business, Management and Accounting · Social Sciences · #Entrepreneurship Studies and Influences #Family Business Performance and Succession #Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy
paper · doi:10.1086/510763
openalex publication_date 2007/03/09 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
Using confidential microdata from the Characteristics of Business Owners survey, we examine why African American–owned businesses lag substantially behind white‐owned businesses in sales, profits, employment, and survival. Black business owners are much less likely than white owners to have had a self‐employed family member owner prior to starting their business and less likely to have worked in that family member’s business. Using a nonlinear decomposition technique, we find that the lack of prior work experience in a family business among black business owners, perhaps by limiting their acquisition of general and specific business human capital, negatively affects black business outcomes.