"The roughly 9.5 percent of all U.S. families that are without some type of transaction account (unbanked) are disproportionately represented by minorities. The unbanked often must rely on alternative ways to carry out basic financial transactions such as cashing payroll checks and paying bills....

The author assesses how ethnic enclaves and networks affect the self-employment decisions of immigrants in the U.S. She finds that ethnic networks play a positive role in the likelihood that immigrants will choose self-employment as an alternative to wage employment. However, there is no clear...