David J. M. Enocksson
I am a PhD Candidate in Economics at the University of Iowa. I am on the job market and will be available for interviews at the ASSA meetings in San Diego from January 2-5, 2020.
Research Interests
Entrepreneurship, Firm Dynamics, Occupational Choice, Wealth & Income Inequality
Contact Information
Department of Economics
W243 Pappajohn Business Building
The University of Iowa
Iowa City, IA 52242, United States
+1 (319) 359‑8448
davidjohnmalte-enocksson@uiowa.edu
Research
Job Market Paper
Occupational Choice under Compensation Frictions [View] [Download]
Aversion to risk can drive some individuals away from entrepreneurship while others may choose dual work—part-time employment parallel to an entrepreneurial venture—to mitigate income variability in the entrepreneurial sector. This paper investigates the effects from two types of compensation frictions on the occupational choice of becoming an entrepreneur. The first friction concerns the disproportional compensation to part-time workers which reduces the value of dual work. The second friction deals with the use of contract provisions preventing employees from pursuing dual work. The results suggest that the two frictions have similar effects on occupational mobility. Both frictions are closely linked to the number of dual workers in the economy but the effect on entrepreneurship is ambiguous. The results further indicate that these compensation frictions reduce welfare among most individuals, including entrepreneurs, and for the economy as a whole. Additionally, the frictions increase wealth dispersion and lowers the median level of wealth. Applications of the results are discussed.
Working Papers
The Role of Dual Work as a Stepping-Stone Toward Self-Employment
Combining self-employment with employment (dual work) offers a self-insurance opportunity against income risk for prospective entrepreneurs. This paper uses data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) to investigate the hypothesis that dual work is used by prospective entrepreneurs as a stepping-stone from employment to self-employment. I estimate several dynamic binary response models and include controls for time and individual effects as well as occupation based on the standard occupational classification (SOC) codes. Measures are taken to remediate issues with incidental parameters stemming from using a small number of periods as well as the initial conditions problem resulting from the dynamic structure. The results suggests that dual workers are more likely than employees to transition into self-employment. Although not significant, while increased household wealth indicates a decreased likelihood to become self-employed among all other groups, the likelihood increases with household wealth among dual workers.
Work in Progress
To Compete or Not Compete: A General Equilibrium Model with Non-Compete Agreements
Recent work on noncompete contracts have devoted attention to empirically study the effects of noncompetes. The aim of this paper is to complement this research and construct a theoretical framework for analyzing the implications of firms’ use of noncompete contracts in an occupational choice model. Firms offer two types of contracts, a ‘noncompete’ contract and a ‘compete’ contract, and workers can freely choose to sign one or the other. Workers signing a noncompete give up flexibility to quickly leave to become an entrepreneur and gets a wage premium and access to trade secrets. Workers under a noncompete interested in starting a rm can choose to honor the contract by choosing not to compete with the employer for a period, or renege on the contract and risk legal consequences in terms of fines.
Teaching
Assistant
Global Economics and Business, Spring 2019
Principles of Macroeconomics, Spring 2015, Spring 2018, Fall 2019 (Head) (Current)
Real Analysis for Economics (Math Camp), Summer 2016, Summer 2017
Macroeconomics II (PhD Core), Spring 2016, Spring 2017
Macroeconomics I (PhD Core),Fall 2016
Money, Banking, and Financial Markets, Fall 2015
Statistics for Strategy Problems, Fall 2014
Lecturer
Grader
Principles of Macroeconomics, Summer 2016
Principles of Microeconomics, Summer 2016
Managerial economics, Fall 2015