Emerging economies (EMEs) have different credit and labor market structures relative to advanced economies. We document that economies with larger self-employment shares tend to exhibit less countercyclical leverage dynamics. We build a model where formal credit markets, input credit relationships, and the structure of labor markets interact that (1) captures a comprehensive set of EME business cycle regularities and (2) rationalizes our new fact. The interaction between firms’ net worth, interfirm input credit, and self-employment underlying our framework is critical for explaining our fact and is supported by the data.
