INTRODUCTION
With continued weakness in the U.S. economy in recent years, the status of entrepreneurship is increasingly seen as vital to recovery (Acs and Armington 2004, Kane 2010, Leming et al. 2010, Haltiwanger et al. 2013). However, the decline in rates of entrepreneurship over the past four decades raises important research questions (Kane 2012). What motivates an individual worker to choose entrepreneurship over employment?What can a government do to assist entrepreneurs, and what can it do to remove barriers to nascent entrepreneurs?
This paper aims to empirically understand the entrepreneur’s decision between creating a business or choosing employment at an existing firm. We utilize a two-part field survey of small business owners in the food truck industry. Food truck entrepreneurs are a compelling class of entrepreneurs as the industry has become increasingly popular with consumers and symbolic of the non-technology startup scene. Not only do food trucks offer an initial step into the restaurant business, but their rising popularity in Washington, D.C. led to a backlash among established restaurants and a controversial regulatory battle in recent years. The fact that food trucks faced inspections at twice the rate of fixed location restaurants raised awareness among the public of the barriers faced by nascent entrepreneurs.
