Homeownership and entrepreneurship

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationship between housing markets and new firm formation in six different industries in all 284 municipalities in Sweden. Design/methodology/approach The authors have used data from Statistics Sweden and The Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth to develop a model to analyze the relationship between house prices and industry-specific new firm formation, with the interaction effect of financial infrastructure. Findings In the data, stable high house prices have no effect on entrepreneurship. However, a market with rising house prices has a positive effect on new firm formation, in retail, construction, business-to-business services and miscellaneous sectors, but produced no effect in either mining, agriculture and fishing or in manufacturing. The interaction between rising house prices and financial infrastructure does not change the positive effect on retail, business-to-business services and miscellaneous sectors, but within the construction industry, the positive effect on new firm formation disappears. In manufacturing, the authors observe the opposite – a positive effect, instead of no effect previously. Originality/value The contribution of this study is to provide evidence of how house prices are associated with entrepreneurship in different industries, as well as analyzing how the interaction between house prices and financial infrastructure is associated with entrepreneurship. By separating observations in time, endogeneity is controlled and a causal relationship where higher house prices is postulated, which leads to an increase in entrepreneurial activity in different industries. By using a spatial Durbin model, the authors control for spatial dependency.