【Macro Seminar】Cash Transfers and Dependence in Entrepreneurial Finance
2026/11/20
研討會日期 : 2026-11-20
時間 : 14:30
主講人 : Professor Chi-Yang Tsou (鄒季洋)
地點 : Conference Room B110
主持人 : Professor Chun-Che Chi
演講者簡介 : Dr. Chi-Yang Tsou received his Ph.D. in Finance from the University of Hong Kong in 2018. He is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Manchester. His research interests are Empirical and Theoretical Asset Pricing, Macro-Finance, and Firm Dynamics.
演講摘要 : Cash transfer programs increasingly seek to promote business ownership among low-income individuals, yet income-based eligibility rules impose an implicit tax on the success of newly created businesses. Linking Brazil's firm registry to individual payment records from Bolsa Família, the world's largest conditional cash transfer program, we find that businesses founded by beneficiaries are 15.5 percent less likely than observably similar firms to be operating five years after founding, a gap of 7.1 percentage points that is absent at founding and widens with business age. Consistent with income misreporting to retain eligibility, reported income among beneficiary households exhibits excess mass just below the extreme-poverty threshold. To separate the post-entry effect of the means test from selection into business ownership, we estimate a dynamic occupational-choice model in which the benefit is retained when a founder ceases operations and forfeited when the business grows. Eligibility raises a new firm's annual failure risk by seven percentage points against a base rate of ten, and the means test accounts for 18 percent of the survival gap; the remainder reflects who the transfer draws into business ownership. Smoothing the eligibility notch leaves the gap nearly unchanged at substantial fiscal cost, while exempting business income from the means test removes the wedge between operating and closing and eliminates nearly all of that gap. Overall, we conclude that the excess failure of beneficiary businesses reflects the design of the means test rather than the generosity of the transfer.
