Local factors and small firms of non-EU immigrants

Our paper analyzes the characteristics of micro firms managed by immigrant entrepreneurs in Italy. We process ISTAT data on individual businesses at province level, in order to understand if the foreign entrepreneurial rate is determined by local factors or by the ethnic characteristic of the firm. The descriptive analysis of the phenomenon suggests that there are different entrepreneurial rates, and that the ethnic, the economic activity and the geographic location of the company could play a major role in determining those differences. The results of the econometric exercise show the importance of local factors at province level, such as unemployment rate, province openness to immigrants, age of local population.