Immigrants, Self-Employment, and Growth in American Cities

Abstract

We employ U.S. Census Bureau data from cities of 10,000 or more to examine the impact of immigrants in American cities on self-employment and median income. The results show that self-employment has a statistically significant and positive impact on median income and immigrant population. When controlling for race populations, lagged immigrant population has a negative impact on self-employment, but removing the Hispanic control causes this relationship to become statistically insignificant. In other words, Hispanics, not other ethnici-ties, drive much of the self-employment in U.S. cities. An implication is that more attention to helping Hispanic business owners succeed and expand their businesses could benefit the general population of a city.