It is commonplace in wage determination models and, in general, in economic models as a whole, to treat the workers' outside option as given. The main purpose of the present work is to remove, in various ways, this assumption. The work is organized as follows. The first chapter is devoted to introducing the thesis topic and the related literature. The second chapter describes an economy in which the workers hired by a firm acquire without cost a firm-specific skill that enables them to potentially become independent producers. Thus, by modelling explicitly the workers' decision to stay or to leave the firm, a stable earning profile for the economy is characterized. Such a stable earning profile can allow for a workers' compensation higher than the basic neoclassical wage and for pay differentials across industries even for initially homogenous workers. The third chapter shows that the existence of a concrete outside option for firms' managers can induce, under specific circumstances, oligopolistic firms to adopt restrictive output practises. In particular, the conditions under which, in a Cournot oligopoly, existing firms behave more collusively than in a standard Cournot model, are carefully defined. The fourth chapter considers the problem of producer co-operatives' (PCs) stability. It shows that PCs' instability argued in the literature can fail to hold in very competitive and low barrier-to-entry markets in which, potentially, dismissed members have a chance to set up new firms. In the fifth and conclusive chapter a new concept of core-stability for n-cooperative games is introduced and applied both to the problem of cartel formation under oligopoly and to an economy with a public good. Such a solution concept, denoted o-core, assumes that when a coalition deviates from an agreement, it possesses a first-mover advantage with respect to all other players.

No description available.

Abstract Title: Influence of Cultural Difference on Self Employment: Chinese people living in Gävle, Sweden. Level: Final assignment for Master Degree in Business Administration Author: Ruihan Lei, Xi Chen Supervisor: Ehsanul Huda Chowdhury Examiner: Maria Fregidou-Malama Date: 2014－09 Aim: This study aims to analyse the influences of cultural differences on self-employment for Chinese people in Gävle, Sweden. The study further discusses the opportunities for Chinese entrepreneurs to do business in Gävle, Sweden. Method: We used qualitative approach as our research method. We focused on one to one interview as the tool for data collection. Eight respondents were selected as there are only eight Chinese entrepreneurs running 10 businesses in Gävle, Sweden at present. Result & conclusions: The individual factors influence more on the decision making of being self-employed, especially the family, age, and education background factor. Furthermore, the risk taking attitude and the ability of information collecting can also impact the self-employment success. Cultural differences are not exactly a hinder for the entrepreneurship of self-employment, but rather are perceived as an opportunity by the respondents. Suggestions for future research: This study was restricted to geographical limitation. It will be better if future research can concentrate on the relationship between problems and opportunities for studies in the field of cultural differences in other locations and other countries. Contribution of the thesis: This study shows how cultural difference impact self-employment from individual perspective and environmental perspective. It fills the gaps of related literatures; it is a detailed study of cultural influences on Chinese self-employed people living in Gävle, Sweden. It is helpful for Chinese who want to do self-employment in other countries, by understanding which specific factors to take into consideration in the process of conducting self-employment to succeed. Keyword: Self-employment, China, Sweden, Cultural differences.

The aim of this diploma thesis is to analyse the impact of proposed change to taxation of professional football players in Czech republic. According to Czech tax authorities the formal relationship between football player and football club is considered as self-employment, nevertheless by its nature is more likely employment. In the theoretical part of this thesis I will define the difference between self-employment and employment, I will also describe the problem of illegal self-employment in place of employment. There will be described different forms of taxation of football players in Europe and finally a new legislative change will be proposed. In the analytical part there will be quantified the impact of the proposed legislative change.

Abstract  This study investigates the native-immigrant earnings differential in self-employment and wage employment in Sweden. The main research question is whether the earnings differential between immigrants and natives differs when immigrants are self-employed. Thereafter, we want to be able to find a critical conclusion in which we can explain the increase or decrease in the different earning groups. Sweden is one of the multinational countries in Europe with a rapidly growing immigrant population. The question that was studied in this essay is analyzed in many ways by economists and researchers. Many previous research discuss the immigrant’s employment propensities and whether immigrants earn more or less in self-employment compared to wage-employment in the labor market.  Theories such as human capital, discrimination and many more, not only explain immigrants’ earnings in the labor market but even discuss the reasons. In our essay we focus on immigrants' earnings relative to natives’. We collected integrated data from the European Social Survey (ESS) between years 2002 - 2018. In the study, we applied the ordinary least squares (OLS) method and conducted immigrants as a dummy variable. Our results suggest that immigrants earn 1.2% lower in self-employment and 9.3% lower in wage-employment relative to natives. Although immigrants earn less than natives in both sectors.  This difference is smaller when immigrants are self-employed. Our results can be supported theoretically that immigrants might be exposed to discrimination in a lower degree in self-employment than wage-employment. Additionally, immigrants might choose to be self-employed to avoid lower earnings in wage employment

No description available.

After going through the literature on entrepreneurship we found that very little studies have been done whether culture and family business traditions influence the decisions of entrepreneurship. Most people from the South and Southeast Asia had cultural and family business backgrounds. The purpose of our study is to investigate if culture and family business traditions of South andSoutheast Asian immigrants affect their decision to become self-employed and if so how. This will enhance the understanding of whether this factor is also important to motivate the entrepreneurs to be self-employed. Most of the studies have pointed out the motivational factors such as pull factors and push factors as being the main influencing factors for immigrant entrepreneurs to choose self-employment. Although, there are various literatures on entrepreneurship and its motivating factors, cultural and family based business traditions, limited study has focused on showing how the cultural and family business background affect the decision making abilities of the entrepreneurs. We have focused on the immigrant entrepreneurs born in South and Southeast Asian region operating their businesses in Umea city. For conducting this study we have used semi-structured interviews from our six respondents to collect the data. Based on our findings we found that the entrepreneurs are influenced by culture and family business traditions. Their social identity plays an important role in motivating them to become entrepreneurs. These immigrants are exposed to business environment from a very early age which helps shape up their business minds. The experience gained from their parents and the cultural and family business traditions act as business opportunity for them in the host country. We believe that this study would be helpful in the future for other scholars who are willing to conduct further research on this particular topic of interest. Our findings have increased the understanding of how the cultural and family business traditions of South and Southeast Asian region do affect the entrepreneurs’ decision to become self-employed in Umea.

This investigation aims to explore the motivating factors behind the decision to engage in informal self-employment within ethnic economies. Through a series of semistructured qualitative interviews with Latin American immigrant women participating in informal self-employment in Stockholm, this study focuses on the ways in which agency and structure can influence economic decisions. Using the theory of mixedembeddedness, the results show that participating in informal self-employment can be understood as both a product of capitalizing on available social and ethnic resources, as well as the outcome of limited opportunities in traditional labour markets. While social and ethnic networks facilitate informal exchanges and provide an environment in which alternative employment opportunities become available, the decision to start an informal enterprise correlates with a lack of other opportunities, due to factors such as discrimination, a lack of language skills, limited access to start-up capital and a complex institutional context for small-scale entrepreneurs.

Employability of graduates has gained considerable interest among researchers recently. This interest came about because of reported concerns by employers regarding the lack of employability skills among graduates thereby rendering them unemployable. South Africa is experiencing persistently high unemployment rates among the youth, particularly those with degrees. Similarly, self-employment of graduates has gained considerable interest among researchers around the world. Despite high unemployment rates among the youth of South Africa, self-employment levels are disappointedly at low levels. Therefore, knowledge of university students‟ perceptions with regard to employability and intention for self-employment is important. The phenomenon of employability has gradually developed over the decades. This resulted in researchers finding it difficult to come up with a common definition of the concept. Nonetheless, researchers share similar views with regard to the importance of employability, particularly among graduates. Due to the changing nature of the world of work, there is an unprecedented need for graduates to possess employability skills that will enhance their employability throughout their working life. For a long time, there has been a debate in South Africa regarding the preparedness of graduates for the world of work. Employers complain about the quality of graduates while universities feel that employers are not appreciative of their contribution in producing appropriate graduates. Therefore, there is a need to investigate employability of students continuously, as the future workforce will come from this cohort. For many decades, self-employment has been viewed as an important component of economies of many countries. In light of this, there has been an increasing interest in self-employment around the world. In the case of South Africa, research has consistently indicated that compared to countries at similar levels of development, the country lags behind on this front. In response to this, numerous attempts have been undertaken to strengthen actions that encourage and support self-employment as an attractive substitute to wage employment for students. There is a shared view among researchers that the decision to enter into self-employment is preceded by intention. Therefore, there is a continuous need to investigate self-employment intentions in South Africa, particularly among students. This study was conducted to investigate the relationship between perceived employability and intention for self-employment among university students. A quantitative research approach was followed to collect data. A questionnaire was administered among second year, third year and postgraduate students at four universities in two provinces of South Africa. Factor analysis was used to establish whether data were appropriate for analysis. T-tests and ANOVA were used to compare students‟ employability skills, perceived employability and intention for self-employment. While there were no significant differences in terms of employability skills and perceived employability, significant differences were found on self-employment intentions on various variables. Correlation analysis was used to investigate the relationship among the factors of perceived employability and the relationship between perceived employability and intention for self-employment. The results indicated that there is a statistically significant relationship between perceived employability and intention for self-employment among university students. Reflecting on the results of this study it is evident that university students perceived themselves as employable. In line with the results, it is important that the employability skills of students should be developed, as this will enhance their employability. The curriculum should be designed in such a way that it incorporates employability skills. Employers and government should play a meaningful role in this regard. While the majority of students indicated that they intend to be self-employed someday, there were a substantial number of students who do not view self-employment as a career option. Therefore, self-employment should be made a compulsory module across different fields of study. Different stakeholders should be involved in encouraging university students to engage in self-employment activities. / PhD (Entrepreneurship)--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2015.

Employability of graduates has gained considerable interest among researchers recently. This interest came about because of reported concerns by employers regarding the lack of employability skills among graduates thereby rendering them unemployable. South Africa is experiencing persistently high unemployment rates among the youth, particularly those with degrees. Similarly, self-employment of graduates has gained considerable interest among researchers around the world. Despite high unemployment rates among the youth of South Africa, self-employment levels are disappointedly at low levels. Therefore, knowledge of university students‟ perceptions with regard to employability and intention for self-employment is important. The phenomenon of employability has gradually developed over the decades. This resulted in researchers finding it difficult to come up with a common definition of the concept. Nonetheless, researchers share similar views with regard to the importance of employability, particularly among graduates. Due to the changing nature of the world of work, there is an unprecedented need for graduates to possess employability skills that will enhance their employability throughout their working life. For a long time, there has been a debate in South Africa regarding the preparedness of graduates for the world of work. Employers complain about the quality of graduates while universities feel that employers are not appreciative of their contribution in producing appropriate graduates. Therefore, there is a need to investigate employability of students continuously, as the future workforce will come from this cohort. For many decades, self-employment has been viewed as an important component of economies of many countries. In light of this, there has been an increasing interest in self-employment around the world. In the case of South Africa, research has consistently indicated that compared to countries at similar levels of development, the country lags behind on this front. In response to this, numerous attempts have been undertaken to strengthen actions that encourage and support self-employment as an attractive substitute to wage employment for students. There is a shared view among researchers that the decision to enter into self-employment is preceded by intention. Therefore, there is a continuous need to investigate self-employment intentions in South Africa, particularly among students. This study was conducted to investigate the relationship between perceived employability and intention for self-employment among university students. A quantitative research approach was followed to collect data. A questionnaire was administered among second year, third year and postgraduate students at four universities in two provinces of South Africa. Factor analysis was used to establish whether data were appropriate for analysis. T-tests and ANOVA were used to compare students‟ employability skills, perceived employability and intention for self-employment. While there were no significant differences in terms of employability skills and perceived employability, significant differences were found on self-employment intentions on various variables. Correlation analysis was used to investigate the relationship among the factors of perceived employability and the relationship between perceived employability and intention for self-employment. The results indicated that there is a statistically significant relationship between perceived employability and intention for self-employment among university students. Reflecting on the results of this study it is evident that university students perceived themselves as employable. In line with the results, it is important that the employability skills of students should be developed, as this will enhance their employability. The curriculum should be designed in such a way that it incorporates employability skills. Employers and government should play a meaningful role in this regard. While the majority of students indicated that they intend to be self-employed someday, there were a substantial number of students who do not view self-employment as a career option. Therefore, self-employment should be made a compulsory module across different fields of study. Different stakeholders should be involved in encouraging university students to engage in self-employment activities. / PhD (Entrepreneurship)--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2015.