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International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences

Open Access Journal

ISSN: 2222-6990

Self-Employment and Unemployment in Tunisia: Application of the ARDL Approach

Chiraz Feki, Sirine Mnif

http://dx.doi.org/10.6007/IJARBSS/v9-i7/6217

Open access

In the literature on the link between entrepreneurship and unemployment, self-employment is the most frequently used indicator for measuring entrepreneurship. The impact of unemployment on self-employment is known as the “refugee effect”. Conversely, the impact of self-employment on unemployment is known as the “entrepreneurial effect”. The relationship between the unemployment rate and self-employment is rather an ambiguous question in the economy. There are two counter arguments: the first is the theory of income choice argumentation, which suggests that increased unemployment may lead to an increase of self-employment activities, while the second argues that the increase of the unemployment rate may decrease human capital endowments and entrepreneurial capacity, which drives unemployment rates higher. The results of the existing studies are varied. The aim of this study is to determine the dynamic relationship between unemployment and self-employment in Tunisia during the period 1980-2015 using the ARDL (Auto Regressive Distributed Lag) approach. Tunisia supports positive impact of unemployment on self-employment and supports negative impact of self-employment on unemployment.