Entrepreneurship over the Business Cycle

Authors

Ryan Rudderham, DePauw University
Miyu Aoki, DePauw University

Files

Document Type

Poster

Publication Date

10-1-2025

Abstract

During economic recessions, individuals face a challenging decision: whether to seek traditional employment or start their own business. While recessions are a poor time for entrepreneurship due to reduced consumer spending and business productivity, these periods also feature high unemployment, which makes finding wage work difficult. This project developed a theoretical framework to study entrepreneurship over the business cycle by introducing labor market frictions, creating a tractable yet realistic structure for occupational choice. Traditional macroeconomic models struggle to capture entrepreneurial decision-making across business cycles. As such, this project looked at labor market frictions in building a theoretical framework. Over the summer, we conducted a comprehensive literature review, constructed the model using scholastic processes, and programmed simulations and visualizations using Current Population Survey microdata in Julia.

Department

Department of Economics & Management, DePauw University, Greencastle, IN

Project Mentor

Professor Ryan Rudderham

Funding and Acknowledgements

FDC Student-Faculty Summer Research Fund

Recommended Citation

Rudderham, Ryan and Aoki, Miyu, "Entrepreneurship over the Business Cycle" (2025). Annual Student Research Poster Session. 233.
https://scholarship.depauw.edu/srfposters/233