Data and Code for: A Risky Venture: Income Dynamics Among Pass-Through Business Owners

Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s) Jason DeBacker, University of South Carolina; Vasia Panousi, University of Montreal; Shanthi Ramnath, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago

Version: View help for Version V1

Name	File Type	Size	Last Modified
appendix_results			03/01/2022 11:49:AM
main_results			03/01/2022 11:44:AM
15otidb1.xls	application/vnd.ms-excel	133.5 KB	12/01/2021 10:40:AM
AuxDataCAL_lead_labinc_2018.csv	text/csv	569.1 KB	12/03/2021 04:19:AM
BusinessEntityPlot.do	text/plain	1.9 KB	02/23/2022 11:33:AM
ECM_VarDec_plots.do	text/plain	11.3 KB	02/28/2022 10:12:AM
README.md	text/x-web-markdown	16.4 KB	06/25/2021 09:47:AM
RunNLS_for_ECM.ado	text/plain	6.7 KB	12/03/2021 04:54:AM
add_ages.do	text/plain	1.1 KB	02/28/2022 05:49:PM
age_exit_plot.do	text/plain	746 bytes	12/03/2021 04:22:AM

Project Citation:

DeBacker, Jason, Panousi, Vasia, and Ramnath, Shanthi. Data and Code for: A Risky Venture: Income Dynamics Among Pass-Through Business Owners. Nashville, TN: American Economic Association [publisher], 2022. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2022-12-09. https://doi.org/10.3886/E156181V1

Project Description

Summary: We employ a large panel of US income tax returns for the period 1987- 2018 to extensively characterize and quantify business income risk. Our findings show business income to be much riskier than labor income. Business income is less persistent and is characterized by higher tail risk. Furthermore, when compared to labor income, heterogeneity across households is less important in explaining the cross-sectional variation in business income and within household income variation is more important. Our results underscore the income risks business owners face and provide stylized facts and parameter estimates useful for quantitative macroeconomic models and policy analysis.

Scope of Project

Subject Terms: income distribution; small businesses; business ownership; income dynamics

JEL Classification:
D31 Personal Income, Wealth, and Their Distributions

Geographic Coverage: United States

Time Period(s): 1987 – 2018

Universe: United States taxpayers (unit of analysis is the taxpaying unit) with primary filers aged 30 to 60 (although some robustness analysis includes alternative samples).

Data Type(s): administrative records data

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Published Versions

V1 [2022-12-09]

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