Estimates from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics indicate that African-American men are one-third as likely to be self-employed as white men. The large discrepancy is due to a black transition rate into self-employment that is approximately one-half the white rate and a black transition rate out of self-employment that is twice the white rate. Using a new variation of the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition technique, the author finds that racial differences in asset levels and probabilities of having self-employed fathers explain a large part of the gap in the entry rate, but almost none of the gap in the exit rate.

This article examines the effects of unemployment compensation finance in a labor market in which firms pay efficiency wages. Two self‐financing unemployment compensation systems are compared: one in which benefits are financed by a proportional payroll tax and another in which experience rating is introduced by taxing firms in proportion to their separations. We find that experience rating leads to less unemployment, less shirking, and higher output.