参军经历、退役政策与创业行为

Military Experience,Discharge Policies and Entrepreneurial Behavior

本文结合具有全国代表性的家户与企业家微观调查数据,探讨了参军经历对创业行为的影响及其机制。本文发现,参军经历对创业的影响具有很大异质性。服役时间较长的退役军人具有较好的公共部门工作机会,创业概率较低,而短期服役者则创业概率较高。借助新中国历史上军队规模的外生变动来克服内生性问题之后,本文发现参军经历从整体上显著提高了退役军人成为私营企业主的可能性。选择创业的退役军人在初次创业时期就更易获得银行贷款,在初创时期和当下企业都拥有更大的投资规模。本文建立了一个职业选择模型解释了其中的机制:一方面,在价值观态度上,退役军人表现出相对于普通人更多的符合企业家精神的性格特质,反映了军队训练的“烙印”效应,使得军人退役后更加偏爱创业而非受雇;另一方面,公共部门的就业优势提高了创业的机会成本,这对于军人退役后选择创业产生了一种筛选机制。本文的研究对改进鼓励创业的政策实践具有重要意义,也为评估与完善中国的军人福利政策提供了重要参考。

This paper investigates the role of military background on entrepreneurship using two largely nationally representative survey datasets on households and entrepreneurs in China.We find that the choice of entrepreneurship depends upon the length of service.Veterans that have served more than 10 years are more likely to take jobs in the public sector instead of becoming entrepreneurs,while veterans with a short stint in service are more likely to start businesses than non-veterans.Exploiting the variations in military conscription over time to remedy the concern about endogenous choice of military service,we find the overall effect of military service on entrepreneurship is positive.Nascent veteran entrepreneurs are more likely to acquire bank loans,and run larger firms.Our findings are consistent with the predictions of an occupationchoice model:Military service shapes the characters of veterans,which are highly relevant for entrepreneurship;Better job opportunities in the public sector for veteran officers mean higher opportunity cost of starting a firm preventing them from becoming entrepreneurs.This paper has profound implications for formulating policies for encouraging entrepreneurship,and evaluating benefit policies for veterans.