The impact of housing price on entrepreneurship in Chinese cities: Does the start-up motivation matter?

Abstract

Until recently, studies of the driving forces and determinant factors of entrepreneurial entry and the emerging literature on the housing-entrepreneurship nexus have been developing independently of each other. This study attempts to connect these two strands of literature through an examination of the impact of urban housing price on the self-employment choices of urban individuals driven by different start-up motives in urban China. Drawing upon a sample of urban individuals developed from the 2016 China Labor-force dynamics data, this study finds that a high level of urban housing price exerts a significantly negative impact on urban individuals' propensity to engage in necessity-driven entrepreneurship, but exhibits no significant influence on opportunity-driven entrepreneurship. The negative consequence of high housing price is most pronounced for necessity-driven entrepreneurs who are not home owners. This study proposes the incorporation of start-up motivation in public policy support for entrepreneurship.