TY - JOUR
AU - Bearse, Peter J.
AB - AN ECONOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF BLACK ENTREPRENEURSHIP Peter J. Bearse Most economists and other social observers characterize entrepreneur- ship in terms that make its study very difficult. It is almost impossible to develop a statistical model of entrepreneurship based on traits such as imagination, capacity for innovation, alertness to new opportunities, willingness to bear risks, etc., unless these traits are delineated in some way by the data. As T. W. Shultz (1975) points out, "our knowledge of a person's abilities consists of inferences drawn from her performance. An ability is thus perceived as the competence and efficiency with which particular acts are performed.'" Therefore, the entrepreneur's traits may only be revealed after the fact of choice and thus are unavailable for predictive and policy purposes. In other words, if the entrepreneur is defined by characteristics such as a willingness to bear risk or an alertness to new opportunities, then poli- cymakers can only identify entrepreneurs after they have watched them succeed or fail as entrepreneurs. As a result, they cannot use these traits to predict individual choices or to prescribe policies affecting these choices or their eventual outcomes. In effect, policy makers are left with nothing more than a tautological 
TI - An Econometric Analysis of Black Entrepreneurship
JO - Review of Black Political Economy
DO - 10.1007/BF02873607
DA - 1984-03-01
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/sage/an-econometric-analysis-of-black-entrepreneurship-CO0xYb0ZEh
SP - 111
EP - 134
VL - 12
IS - 4
DP - DeepDyve
ER -