Entrepreneurs are important actors in economic activities and creators of social wealth. Excellent entrepreneurs contribute their wisdom to the accumulation of social wealth and the promotion of high-quality economic and social development. The business environment is the main manifestation of the soft power of cities and regional economic development, and a better business environment can effectively attract enterprises and promote their sustainable growth. Using data from Chinese A-share listed companies from 2009-2019 as a research sample, the following research conclusions were drawn: (1) A better business environment helps enhance entrepreneurship. (2) A better business environment promotes entrepreneurship by reducing rent-seeking expenses and corporate credit costs. (3) Compared to traditional enterprises, high-tech enterprises are better able to enjoy the benefits brought by business environment optimization and further enhance entrepreneurship. When competition is low, entrepreneurs face lower rent-seeking expenses, which is conducive to stimulating entrepreneurship. The businessenvironment can promote fairness and bring more equal financing opportunities for enterprises, which has a higher impact on entrepreneurship for the group facing higher financing constraints. This study meticulously analyzes the impact ofthebusiness environment on entrepreneurship, providing references for the next steps of optimizing the business environment and enhancing entrepreneurship.

Considering that housing is the single biggest asset for most households, owning a home may create barriers to entrepreneurship for young people who generally accumulate relatively little wealth due to a short-term career and low income. Using longitudinal data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) survey, our empirical work suggests that homeowners are associated with significantly less propensity for entrepreneurial engagement and the negative homeownership effect on entrepreneurship is much larger for younger homeowners. These findings are robust to omitted variable bias, reverse causality and model misspecification. We explore the mechanism through which capital constraints related to housing purchase may more affect younger homeowners from starting entrepreneurial activities. We find strong supportive evidence for this mechanism.

Utilizing a 2021 nationally representative sample of 7,504 White-owned employer businesses (WOBs) in the United States of America (USA), the extent, and the determinants of WOB business registration are estimated. Business registration is employed as a proxy for business in/formality. Approximately one-fifth (22.5%) of all employer WOBs are unregistered or informal business concerns hidden from government purview. The primary determinants of employer WOB informality are business size (annual revenues under $500,000 and few paid employees), a business owner with less than a four-year college degree, and an upbringing in a lower- or middle-class environment, among other findings. Notably, this research reveals the white lie of the magnitude of White-owned employer business informality in the USA.

To investigate successful technology transfer, the potential path of innovations from the university research bench to the knowledge recipient is modelled. Universities exist in highly regulated environments and the initial path of decision-making is a hierarchical model and where decisions flow upward from manager to manager until a small number of candidate innovations for commercialization remain. These are then routed for further processing to the link connecting to the knowledge recipient, the Technology Transfer Office (TTO). In the TTO, a hierarchical decision-making model can be acceptable in terms of outcomes, but ambidextrous co-operative team structures are much superior in cases where staff have good insight and decision-making abilities. This report represents the first Structured Equation Model investigation of the management architecture of a TTO.

In the past, investing in housing has served as an engine of growth for many economies as it is widely recognized that poor housing conditions can have significant negative impacts on human health, education, and economic opportunities. To assess the housing-related quality of life, indicators such as housing quality, housing environment, and cost burdens can be applied. However, recent studies indicate that materials used for construction are critical. Permanent materials, as opposed to temporary materials, typically offer a range of benefits in terms of durability, low maintenance, improved energy efficiency, increased property value, and better safety. The ultimate aim is to identify the key drivers of housing conditions in Cambodia, with a particular focus on materials and water quality, and the legal status of housing. To find the empirical relationship between economic, socio-economic, and demographic variables on the one hand, and variables measuring housing and living conditions in Cambodia on the other, the analysis employs Ordinary Least Squares and Methods-of-Moments regression modeling. Results indicate that high employment rates and entrepreneurship increase home ownership, and improve the quality of drinking water available. Furthermore, in addition to employment and entrepreneurship, the higher-performing construction materials can also be empirically explained by a bigger labor force and variables capturing the wider macroeconomic environment.

Self-employment is often associated with entrepreneurship and regarded as a driver of innovation, job creation and economic growth. As such, many countries have policies to promote and support self-employment. One mechanism for self-employment to drive job growth is for sole traders to become an employer through hiring employees. However, there are few studies that investigate if solo self-employment helps the transitions into employership. Using the Understanding Society data, this study shows that in the UK labour market solo self-employment does not work as a ‘steppingstone’ to employership. This raises the question why self-employment should be promoted through public policy as in the UK and many other developed countries.

In China, the land arrangement behavior of over 160 million rural-urban migrant workers is closely related to the optimal allocation of rural land resources and sustainable development of urban and rural areas. Although previous studies show that social capital affects migrant workers’ land arrangement behavior, few empirical studies reveal the relationship between them, and the corresponding interventions remain unclear. Using survey data collected in Henan Province, China, and a multinomial logit model, this study empirically analyzes the mechanism behind the impact of social capital on migrant workers’ land arrangement behavior from the perspective of social capital. Results illustrate that social capital has a significant impact on the land arrangement behavior of migrant workers. The behavior is significantly correlated with the scale of migrant workers’ urban social networks, the degree of urban social trust, and urban belonging. More social capital in urban areas indicates a higher tendency for migrant workers to abandon their land contracting rights and become permanent urban residents. This study reveals the mechanism of social capital affecting migrant workers’ land arrangement behavior and provides a reference for decision-making with respect to guiding migrant workers’ land management behavior for other countries facing similar social problems.

This paper explores how the medical expenditure risk affects the households’ portfolio choice across health status theoretically in a life cycle model and empirically using machine learning methods. Medical expenditure risk, as a background risk, has the potential to influence households’ financial decisions. A higher medical expenditure risk leads to a larger fluctuation and more uncertainty in households’ consumption and therefore utility. As a result, risk-free assets become more attractive. Our machine learning analysis provides evidence that aligns with the predictions of the theoretical life cycle model. Specifically, households with better health hold a larger proportion of stocks in their portfolios. Furthermore, when facing increased medical expenditure risk, households in good health demonstrate a greater willingness to invest in safe assets.

The clean energy revolution is a global concern. Cross-border collaboration is crucial for sharing knowledge, pooling resources, and tackling complex challenges on a global scale. International partnerships can accelerate innovation by drawing on diverse knowledge and experience from different regions. Access to capital is a key driver of innovation and entrepreneurship in clean energy. Institutional investors and financial institutions increasingly recognize the potential for high returns from the clean energy sector. This research aimed to understand whether "dirty" energies, such as the Brent Crude Spot, WTI, FTSE 350 Oil, Gas & Coal, EURO STOXX Oil & Gas, influence the formation of sustainable energy prices, namely Geothermal Index, Solar Energy Index, NASDAQ OMX Bio Clean Fuels Index, Wind Energy Index, WilderHill Clean Energy Index, during the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. When comparing the two sub-periods, the results show that the level of autocorrelation in price formation has increased, i.e., the mean rhoDCCA went from 32 to 45, the weak correlation coefficients without trend decreased from 30 to 19, and the anti-persistence has also decreased from 8 to 4. The strong rhoDCCA increased from 2 to 4; during the Tranquil period, the FTSE 350 / EURO STOXX Oil index pairs had a rhoDCCA of 0.76. While in the Stress subperiod, the NASDAQ OMX Bio / Solar Energy pairs had a slope of 0.70, and the FTSE 350 / EURO STOXX Oil indices had a rhoDCCA of 0.91. Evidence shows a notable dissociation between fossil energy prices and sustainable energy sources. This dissociation is characterized by various degrees of influence between fossil energy prices and sustainable energy indices, from low to moderate. This dissociation between fossil energy prices and sustainable energy prices suggests that investments in sustainable energy can offer diversification opportunities.