Guerra, Giuliano economiche, Università della Svizzera italiana, Svizzera Patuelli, Roberto economiche, Università della Svizzera italiana, Svizzera 2010 Theoretical and empirical research suggests a connection between the presence of role models and the emergence of entrepreneurs. Existing entrepreneurs may act as role models for self-employment candidates by providing successful examples. By explicitly considering the self- employment rates of the natives, which may influence locally the decisions of immigrants towards entrepreneurship, we develop a simple model that explains immigrant self-employment rates for a sample of 2,490 Swiss municipalities. In addition, we accommodate for the presence of spatial spillovers in the distribution of rates, and test a spatial autoregressive model which takes into account the average self-employment rates of immigrants living in nearby municipalities. Our evidence shows a significant (positive) effect of such spatial network effects, which are characterized by a quick distance decay, suggesting spatial spillovers at the household and social network level. Additionally, we show that local conditions and immigrant pool characteristics differ, with respect to self-employment choices, when examining separately urban and rural contexts. application/pdf https://susi.usi.ch/global/documents/318352 https://localhost:5000/ark:/12658/srd1318352 https://susi.usi.ch/documents/318352/files/wp1010.pdf eng info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/ark/12658/srd1318352 info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess License undefined Immigrants self-employment role models Switzerland spatial lag info:eu-repo/classification/udc/33 The influence of role models on immigrant self-employment : a spatial analysis for Switzerland http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_816b