Immigrant entrepreneurs are seen in many societies in present days, no exception for a country like Sweden with a significant number of foreign-born populations. This thesis gets in touch with current immigrant entrepreneurs in the country to obtain first-hand experiences in the entrepreneurial process. The thesis explores the factors affecting these immigrant entrepreneurs in business establishment from the first-person point of view. Employing the mixed embeddedness approach in analysis, the thesis investigates the interactions between the immigrant entrepreneurs and the environment. Every part of the society and individual characteristics could impact the decision made by immigrant entrepreneurs regarding business establishment. The establishment of business is a result of contributions from many different elements surrounding the immigrant entrepreneur. This thesis represents some of the many actual experiences in the Swedish society. There is still an extensive field left to explore and many diversified experiences to be discovered.

Cette thèse porte sur les effets de transferts monétaires sur l’emploi dans le marché du travail sud-africain, un marché fortement segmenté entre secteur formel et informel. Le premier et principal chapitre montre qu’un programme de transferts monétaires inconditionnels destinés aux mères a eu des effets positifs durables sur la qualité de leurs emplois. Sur le long terme, les mères bénéficiaires du transfert sont plus susceptibles d’être employées dans le secteur formel. C’est la conséquence de changements dans la façon dont les mères traitées cherchent un emploi. En leur donnant la possibilité de rester au chômage pendant plus longtemps, le programme de transferts inconditionnels leur permet de viser des emplois de meilleure qualité. Le deuxième chapitre étudie les effets sur l’emploi d’une réforme du système public de retraites en Afrique du Sud, qui est non-contributif et soumis à conditions de ressources. Cette réforme a abaissé l’âge de la retraite de 65 à 60 ans pour les hommes. Elle a entraîné une forte diminution du taux d’activité des travailleurs informels, qui cessent de travailler lorsqu’ils atteignent 60 ans et deviennent éligibles à la pension de retraite non-contributive. Au contraire, les travailleurs du secteur formel ne quittent pas leur emploi et ne se tournent pas vers le secteur informel pour avoir droit à la pension de retraite. Enfin, cette thèse aborde la question du faible nombre de travailleurs indépendants en Afrique du Sud. Le dernier chapitre montre que les Sud-Africains ne travaillent pas plus à leur compte en réponse à des transferts monétaires. Cela indique que les contraintes de liquidité ne sont pas la principale raison du manque de travailleurs indépendants en Afrique du Sud. Cette faible présence de travailleurs indépendants a probablement des racines historiques liées à l’apartheid. Ce troisième chapitre examine les implications potentielles de cette explication, ainsi que les pistes de recherches futures possibles pour une compréhension plus fine de ce phénomène. / This dissertation studies the employment effects of cash transfers in a segmented labor market. The first and main chapter shows that an unconditional cash transfer program targeted at mothers has lasting positive impacts on job quality. Five years after having received the cash transfer, treated mothers are more likely to be employed in the formal sector. This appears to be the result of changes in the way recipients search for a job, as treated mothers are unemployed for longer and target better jobs. The second chapter shows the employment effects of a reform in the means-tested, non-contributory pension system of South Africa, which lowered the age of retirement from 65 to 60 for men. The reform caused a large extensive-margin response, as informal workers stop working when they become eligible to the pension. Instead, formal workers do not quit their jobs nor switch to the informal sector to become eligible to the pension. Lastly, this dissertation discusses the lack of self-employment in South Africa. Building on the results of the first two chapters, the last chapter shows that South Africans do not increase entry to self-employment as a result of cash transfers. This indicates that liquidity constraints are not the main reason for the lack of self-employment in South Africa, which is likely to have historical roots stemming from Apartheid. The chapter discusses evidence and potential policy implications of this explanation, alongside possible avenues for future research on this phenomenon.

Mit der Arbeit wird der Versuch unternommen, den Zusammenhängen von Biographie- und individuellen Lernprozessen nachzugehen. Dies erfolgt am Beispiel von acht ostdeutschen ExistenzgründerInnen, die sich nach der Wende in den neuen Bundesländern im Lebensmitteleinzelhandel selbständig gemacht haben. Hierbei interessiert die Frage, inwieweit Erfahrungen den Lernprozeß behindert oder gefördert haben. Die Ergebnisse der Arbeit bestätigen die hohe Relevanz von Erfahrungen, Handlungsmustern und Verhaltensweisen und weisen auf die Bedeutung emotionaler Faktoren im Lernprozeß hin, die den Lernprozeß sowohl behindert, als auch gefördert haben. Die Autorin zieht hieraus den Schluß, daß individuelle Lernprozesse durch Lernberater zu begleiten und durch den Aufbau von Netzwerken zu unterstützen seien. Voraussetzung hierfür ist eine neue Lernkultur, die an den Biographie- und Kompetenzressourcen der Lerner ansetzt und dem Lehrenden eine beratende und moderierende Rolle im Lernprozeß zuweist. Wesentliche Grundlage sind kooperative und reflexive Kompetenzen und die Fähigkeit, eine vertrauensvolle Atmosphäre zu schaffen, in der sich beide Seiten öffnen können. / This paper attempts to look into the interrelationships between biographical and individual learning processes. The work is based on the example of eight female persons who, following German reunification, became self-employed within the food retail trade in the former East German states. The question of interest here is, in how far past experiences have promoted or impeded the learning process. The results of this work confirm the high relevance of experiences, action patterns and behaviour, and point out the significance of emotional factors within the learning process, through which this process was both impeded as well as promoted. The author comes to the conclusion that individual learning processes should be accompanied by educational consultants and supported through the establishment of networks. A pre-requirement for this is a new learning culture that starts out with the biographical and competence resources of the learning person and assigns to the teaching person a counselling and presenting role within the process of learning. The essential fundamentals are co-operative and reflexive competencies and the ability to create a trusting atmosphere within which both sides can open themselves up.

The genesis of the informal sector in Mozambique is similar to the way it emerged in many other countries in the world, starting mainly with small businesses performed by unemployed people, peasent families, street vendors among others as their self employment. The informal sector offers a striking illustration of the strengths and weakness of enterprises in Mozambique. A simple and transparent legal framework, properly enforced is indispensable for the long term success of the informal sector to turn to formal sector. Taxation is controversary in the informal sector. The existing tax system in Mozambique is distorced and naturally contribute to a host of economic and social problems. The needed for the reform of taxation system has been acknowledged for instance the recent implementation of VAT system in Mozambique still on process of implementation. Taxes generated by the informal sector could contribute to the budget of the State. / Mercantile Law / LL.M.

This thesis is an investigation into the microeconomic mechanisms that govern some of the occupational choices faced by workers in Sub-Saharan Africa, and into the monetary and non-monetary returns to their decisions. Chapter 1 begins by exploring the decision process that leads workers to allocate themselves to different occupations within the economy. In particular, I investigate the role of risk-aversion in the allocation of workers between formal and informal jobs in Ghana, hence attempting to explain a fundamental dimension of duality through an investigation into workers' preferences. In my model of sectoral allocation risk-averse workers can opt between entering the free-entry informal sector and queuing for formal occupations. Conditional on identifying the riskier option, the model yields testable implications on the relationship between risk-aversion and workers' allocation. My testing strategy proceeds in two steps. First, using the first three waves of the Ghana Household Urban Panel Survey (GHUPS) dataset, I estimate expected income uncertainty and find it considerably higher in the informal sector than in formal employment. Second, using experimental data to elicit risk-attitudes I estimate the effect of risk-aversion on occupational choices and I find that, in line with the first result, more risk-averse workers are more likely to queue for formal jobs and less likely to be in the informal sector. The conclusion of the first chapter is that attitudes to risk should feature more prominently in models of sector allocation and in the design of labour market policies, in particular when those policies aim to impact workers' vulnerability to risk and uncertainty. Chapter 2 focuses on the largest occupational category in the Developing world, self-employed workers with small productive activities, and it tries to estimate the returns to different productive assets, namely physical capital, labour and human capital. These are the workers that form most of the informal sector analysed in chapter 1, which allows me to draw a direct link with the analysis so far. The chapter begins by specifying a model for the income-generating process grounded in the literature on firms' production and hence abridging the gap between the analysis of individual earnings and the study of firms' value added. Identification in the empirics is achieved by means of panel estimators that are suitable to address the endogeneity of input choices, which derives from both time-varying and time-invariant unobservable heterogeneity. The use of these estimators is made feasible by the length of the Ghanaian Household Urban Panel Survey dataset at CSAE. I also explore issues of endogeneity in the selection of different technologies, defined by their relative capital and labour intensity. Finally, I analyse the shape of returns to capital, with the aim to detect potential non-convexities in technology. The results show that capital and work-experience play the strongest role in income-generation, while the shares of value added attributed to labour and to formal schooling are low. Marginal returns to investment are high at low capital levels and they decrease very rapidly, pointing against the existence of non-convexities due to minimum scale requirements, but implying that real income gains resulting form micro-investment are modest. Chapter 3 returns to the issue of earnings uncertainty and risk-aversion explored in Chapter 1, but it now takes the allocation choice as given and explores the direct welfare implications of income uncertainty for worker's well-being. Namely, the chapter explores the relationship between income and welfare, with a particular attention on the link between income vulnerability and happiness. Using unique longitudinal data on life-satisfaction and labour market outcomes, I estimate an individual measure of vulnerability (defined as the probability of falling below a low-income threshold) and investigate its effect on well-being. After controlling for unobservable individual fixed effects, work-satisfaction, relative income and other relevant worker characteristics, I find a sizable impact of vulnerability, over and above the income effect. When I explore the mechanisms behind my results, I find that aspiration adaptation to current income may result in a transitory income effect. Moreover, using my direct measure of attitudes to risk from field-experiments (already used in chapter 1), I can test directly the hypothesis that more risk-averse agents suffer more heavily from a given increase in income vulnerability. Overall, my findings support policy interventions that aim to reduce vulnerability, as I expect such policies to have a 'direct' impact on agents' happiness given the prevailing attitudes to risk and uncertainty in the population. Finally, from the point of view of overall social welfare, my results suggest that non-Rawlsian growth models, whereby 'someone may be left behind', may fail to enhance general welfare, for high enough levels of risk-aversion in the population, if the risk of falling behind is sufficiently widespread.

The past two decades have witnessed significant growth in home-based work (HBW), particularly home-based business (HBB) activity and self-employment. These phenomena are attributed to factors such as flexible organization of production. While some empirical accounts on HBW and HBB activity in Canada do exist, they have mostly been conducted at the national or urban level rather than in rural areas. This thesis, therefore, places greater emphasis on rural HBBs in Saskatchewan where out-migration of people is threatening the viability and sustainability of rural and small communities. It is argued that rural sustainability largely depends on economic viability. The study area for the research includes the City of Saskatoon and the countryside surrounding this city. <p>The overall goal of this research is to contribute to the discussion of rural sustainability by considering HBBs as a potential strategy to achieve sustainability in rural areas and small communities. Therefore, the primary objectives of the dissertation are to examine the nature and degree of relationships of home business activity between rural, rural-urban fringe and urban areas, and the implications on links for sustainability of rural households and communities; to examine the relationship of HBB activity to the concept of rural entrepreneurship and business development; and to assess the contributions of rural and small town HBBs to the sustainability of households and communities in Saskatchewan. <p>A combination of the concept of sustainable community development, the von Thunen model and the competitive strategy model (i.e., cost-leadership, differentiation, focus) provide the theoretical framework of the thesis. Through snowball sampling and mail questionnaire surveys, primary data on HBBs were obtained from Saskatoon and its surrounding regions in Saskatchewan for micro-level analysis. Both qualitative and quantitative techniques were employed to analyze the data. <p>Major findings of the thesis include the linkages that HBBs create among places and the impact of links on community sustainability; and the apparent spatial variations in HBBs, motivations, competitive strategies, and benefits of home businesses from the urban core to the limits of the rural hinterland. It was also found that home businesses contribute positively to the sustainability of households and communities in rural Saskatchewan. Specifically, they generate significant revenue and employment opportunities for people, while supporting local economies through their networks, purchasing and selling of goods and services locally as well as keeping managers and members of their households in rural areas and small communities for considerable number of years. Indeed home-based occupation is a vital component of the mechanisms for rural sustainability. Also, this thesis proposed a rural-urban HBB model for future social science research. <p>Major conceptual underpinnings of the research include rural-urban relations; regional and community economic development, sustainable community development; rural entrepreneurship, home-based work, home business, self-employment, competitive strategy, and the von Thunen Isolated State model.

The past two decades have witnessed significant growth in home-based work (HBW), particularly home-based business (HBB) activity and self-employment. These phenomena are attributed to factors such as flexible organization of production. While some empirical accounts on HBW and HBB activity in Canada do exist, they have mostly been conducted at the national or urban level rather than in rural areas. This thesis, therefore, places greater emphasis on rural HBBs in Saskatchewan where out-migration of people is threatening the viability and sustainability of rural and small communities. It is argued that rural sustainability largely depends on economic viability. The study area for the research includes the City of Saskatoon and the countryside surrounding this city. <p>The overall goal of this research is to contribute to the discussion of rural sustainability by considering HBBs as a potential strategy to achieve sustainability in rural areas and small communities. Therefore, the primary objectives of the dissertation are to examine the nature and degree of relationships of home business activity between rural, rural-urban fringe and urban areas, and the implications on links for sustainability of rural households and communities; to examine the relationship of HBB activity to the concept of rural entrepreneurship and business development; and to assess the contributions of rural and small town HBBs to the sustainability of households and communities in Saskatchewan. <p>A combination of the concept of sustainable community development, the von Thunen model and the competitive strategy model (i.e., cost-leadership, differentiation, focus) provide the theoretical framework of the thesis. Through snowball sampling and mail questionnaire surveys, primary data on HBBs were obtained from Saskatoon and its surrounding regions in Saskatchewan for micro-level analysis. Both qualitative and quantitative techniques were employed to analyze the data. <p>Major findings of the thesis include the linkages that HBBs create among places and the impact of links on community sustainability; and the apparent spatial variations in HBBs, motivations, competitive strategies, and benefits of home businesses from the urban core to the limits of the rural hinterland. It was also found that home businesses contribute positively to the sustainability of households and communities in rural Saskatchewan. Specifically, they generate significant revenue and employment opportunities for people, while supporting local economies through their networks, purchasing and selling of goods and services locally as well as keeping managers and members of their households in rural areas and small communities for considerable number of years. Indeed home-based occupation is a vital component of the mechanisms for rural sustainability. Also, this thesis proposed a rural-urban HBB model for future social science research. <p>Major conceptual underpinnings of the research include rural-urban relations; regional and community economic development, sustainable community development; rural entrepreneurship, home-based work, home business, self-employment, competitive strategy, and the von Thunen Isolated State model.

This thesis consists of three self-contained essays. Essay 1: This essay estimates wage assimilation among non-western immigrants in Sweden, controlling for selection into employment by including individual fixed effects. Furthermore, using matched employer-employee panel data covering the complete Swedish labor market, this essay decomposes wage catch-up into relative wage growth within and between workplaces and occupations. The results show that failing to control for selection into employment is likely to underestimate relative wage growth of immigrants, as early entrants in the labor market differ from later entrants along unobservable dimensions. Even after 30 years in the country, the group of non-western immigrants still earns substantially lower wages than natives. Wages catch up mainly within workplaces and occupations, suggesting that improved signals of productivity, rather than improved knowledge of job options, are of importance for the wage growth of non-western immigrants. Essay 2: Earlier research has shown that immigrant- and minority entrepreneurs have difficulties accessing capital through the formal financial markets. This essay studies what role immigrant employees within the local bank sector have for the probability of immigrants to run their own businesses. I use linked employer-employee data covering the whole Swedish labor market for the years 1987 to 2003 and utilize a nationwide refugee dispersal policy to get exogenous variation in the exposure to co-ethnic bank employees. Results suggest that there is a positive relation between co-ethnic bank employees and the probability of being self-employed. This effect is most pronounced for immigrants who arrived with low education, for males and for those residing in metropolitan regions. The effects are substantial and robust to a wide set of controls for labor market characteristics of the ethnic group at the local level. These results provide evidence of an ethnic component in the formal credit markets. Essay 3 (with Oskar Nordström Skans): This essay investigates the impact of a collective agreement stipulating a one shot increase in establishment-specific wage levels in a public-sector setting where wages otherwise are set according to individualized wage bargaining. The agreement stipulated that wages should increase in proportion to the number of low-paid females within each establishment. We find that actual wages among incumbents responded to the share of females with a wage below the stipulated threshold, conditional on the separate effects of the share of low wage earners, and the share of females. We find clear evidence of path-dependence in wages, covered workers remained on higher wage levels 4 years after the agreement took effect. The increase in wages resulted in a reduced probability of exit among young workers with relatively good grades and a lower frequency of new hires at the establishment level.

The unemployment is an important economic as well as social problem which has a negative influence on not only the unemployed and their family but also our society. The society is trying to face up to the unemployment through a lot of ways. Measures of the active politics of employment are one of the possibilities of an increase in the employment rate. One of the tools of the active politics of employment is a contribution toward the creation of a socially efficient self-employment job. The purpose of this thesis was to conduct a survey of problems of the tools of the active politics of employment related to a support of beginning entrepreneurs. The first partial aim was to analyse the beginning entrepreneurs supported by these tools in South Bohemia. The second partial aim was to get a feedback from the beginning entrepreneurs supported by these tools of the active politics of employment in the Pisek District in the years 2007 through 2011 about how this support from the Employment Office helped them at the start of a business. The research part first included a secondary analysis of data related to the provision of the contribution toward the creation of the socially efficient self-employment job in South Bohemia. Then the data from the respondents who had received the given contribution were gathered through the qualitative research. The research included 11 participants who concluded a contract concerning the support given to the beginning entrepreneurs in the Pisek District after 2007. The findings result in the fact that some unemployed people can assert themselves at the market only if they start a business. All respondents agreed that this contribution had helped them at the start of their business even though the amount had not been large enough for many of them. The findings of the thesis bring information on the contribution toward the creation of the socially efficient self-employment job and the analysis of the information within South Bohemia. The findings can become a base for other researches related to the tools of the active politics of employment and they can also be used as a feedback for the Employment Office of the Czech Republic.

This diploma thesis deals with use of alternative work arrangements. It introduces the topic of job flexibility and alternative work arrangements. It focuses mainly on the use of four main alternative work arrangements as provided by the International Labour Organization, which are: temporary employment, part-time work, temporary agency work and self-employment. The text compares data regarding these four alternative work arrangements in the European Union. The thesis also includes a qualitative research carried out in big organizations in Prague that assesses what forms of alternative work arrangements do they use, what are the reasons for opting for some of the alternative work arrangements in an organization and it identifies the most beneficial alternative work arrangements, applicant groups and job positions that the alternative work arrangements are used for the most. KEY WORDS labour market flexibility, non-standard employment, flexible working arrangements, temporary employment, part-time work, temporary agency work, self-employment