Every election brings with it odes to the "job creators" and long-winded discourses on importance of entrepreneurship, and this one was no different. After all, we know that entrepreneurs create jobs, and that employment figures drive election results. And although it turns out those are both partial truths, it IS true that entrepreneurship is good for the economy. But is entrepreneurship good for entrepreneurs? It's an interesting question that scholars like Chuck Eesley (in my research group) and others are working to unravel. It's been established, for instance, that the financial returns to entrepreneurship are negative relative to more traditional employment. In other words, entrepreneurs would do better to take a job than to create one. At the same time, research also finds that people don't necessarily enter entrepreneurship for the money: concerns such as autonomy and bringing ideas to life tend to top the list. But while being your own boss certainly sounds nice, entrepreneurship also brings a tremendous amount of stress. A common mantra among entrepreneurs is that "there are no weekends", and a coworker once joked to me that "the best way to ruin a marriage is to start a company."

So what's the net impact on entrepreneurs? A recent study by Michael Dahl and colleagues at Denmark's Aalborg University tried one novel way to find out.