安露露（博士研究生）、何浩然（通讯作者），“How does entrepreneurial experience affect future employment? Evidence from two correspondence studies”，Journal of Population Economics（ABS 3）,Volume 39, article number 66,Published Online: 2026-09-26, //doi.org/10.1007/s00148-026-01213-8
Abstract:Many entrepreneurs eventually transition back into the labor market.While existing research documents discrimination against former entrepreneurs in developed economies,the sources of this discrimination and the extent to which this evidence generalizes to developing-country contexts remain poorly understood.By sending fictitious resumes to employers in which we vary the presence of entrepreneurial experience and whether it occurred before or after paid employment experience in two resume correspondence studies,we investigate whether and why former entrepreneurs face hiring discrimination in the Chinese labor market.We find substantial discrimination against former entrepreneurs. Guided by an employer decision model, we show that statistical discrimination is the primary source of this penalty,while finding no clear evidence regarding the presence of taste-based discrimination.A complementary survey-based choice experiment further indicates that employers’ concerns about former entrepreneurs’ commitment and fit can largely explain this discrimination. These results underscore that mitigating hiring discrimination for former entrepreneurs in emerging economies may require a combination of employee-side strategies, such as strategically acquiring paid employment experience, and employer-side interventions that reduce information asymmetries.