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The purpose of this article is to analyze and draw conclusions from recent SEC staff proposals and commissioners' comments and a recent roundtable discussion concerning access to foreign exchanges and broker‐dealers by US investors.

The paper summarizes a proposal by Erik Sirri, Director of the SEC Division of Market Regulation; a proposal by Ethiopis Tafara and Robert J. Peterson, respectively, the Director of the SEC Office of International Affairs and its Senior Counsel; and comments in speeches by Commissioners Roel Campos, Paul Atkins, and Annette Nazareth; and draws conclusions regarding the SEC's current efforts to develop and articulate a strategic approach to mutual recognition.

As the securities market becomes globalized, there is a growing interest among US investors for foreign securities and for more direct access to foreign broker‐dealers and exchanges. The SEC is determined to remain in the forefront among US government agencies on securities exchange mutual recognition issues, and therefore is pursuing an accelerated agenda to address these issues. The SEC sees its role as not only to function as a bulwark for the protection of US investors but also to take constructive, affirmative steps that serve to strengthen the US capital markets. While the SEC has historically been an advocate for the global convergence of national regulatory standards, it is now considering proposals for a country‐by‐country bilateral approach based upon cooperation among regulators with substantively comparable regulatory regimes.

This paper presents a useful analysis of the direction the SEC is likely to take on the mutual recognition issue by an experienced securities lawyer.

Gig microentrepreneurs are individuals who have embraced short-term gigs as an entrepreneurial agency for both financial and social livelihood. Based on surveys in 2020 and 2023, the research reported here presents a comprehensive, empirical portrait of two cohorts of gig microentrepreneurs. This portrait captures the similarities and differences of gig microentrepreneurs in terms of offline and online business models and the nature of gig work. Recognizing that there is not a “typical” gig microentrepreneur will help ensure that this gig business model continues to evolve without boundaries in terms of demographics, motivations and behavior and will enable marketing and entrepreneurship scholars to better assist in entrepreneurial growth and development. The purpose of this paper is to gain a better understanding of the gig microentrepreneur regardless of the nature of the gig work.

The research involved two separate surveys in the USA. The first survey took place in July 2020, and the second survey took place in April 2023 after major changes had taken place in the economy and in society (e.g. the COVID pandemic). Both surveys used samples generated by Dynata, an online consumer panel company with access to more than 70 million consumers worldwide who have agreed to participate as panel members.

The surveys provided answers to questions about the demographic and behavioral aspects of gig microentrepreneurs, including who they are, the number and type of gig activities in which they participate, the financial livelihood generated from gig income, the social livelihood inherent in gig work and dissatisfaction with being a microentrepreneur in the gig economy. These findings produced insights into why individuals engage in gig activities and the positive and negative impacts of that engagement. Based on the findings, nuances and trends within the gig economy and among gig microentrepreneurs are identified and discussed.

The research limitations include lack of generalizability outside of the USA, use of panel data and survivor bias.

Consumers, gig microentrepreneurs, companies and government agencies can benefit from the growth in the gig economy. The vast array of gig activities in which gig microentrepreneurs engage clearly shows the need for an on-demand workforce. There are both economic and societal benefits to having a labor-force that can meet a breadth of demands with varying timeframes.

Whether gig microentrepreneurs are engaging in gig work to augment their income because of economic insecurity or for intrinsic reasons, the motivations and behaviors of the gig microentrepreneurs are indicative of the talent and resources needed to keep the US economy moving forward positively.

As noted by several scholars conducting research on the gig economy, little is known about gig microentrepreneurs – who they are, what they do and why they do it. Current research on the gig economy tends to focus on online platform companies. This research offers an exploratory look at microentrepreneurs who engage in gig activities both online and offline without geographic or technological boundaries.

This chapter reports the results of an empirical study on the “gender–performance gap,” the alleged difference in business performance between firms started or owned by females and males. Although numerous studies have compared the business performance of firms started by or owned by female and male entrepreneurs, most research to date has employed financial performance metrics and has often produced inconsistent results. The present research compared gender-based business performance by examining self-perceptions of a large sample of female and male Black and Mexican-American entrepreneurs. As such, the present study overcame several limitations of prior gender–performance gap research and addressed entrepreneurial groups seldom studied. While there were no perceptual differences between female and male entrepreneurs surveyed regarding the performance of their respective businesses, Mexican-American entrepreneurs surveyed perceived the performance of their business as being better than Black entrepreneurs surveyed, and this result held for both females and males. Findings from the study provide insights into the perceptions held by Black and Mexican-American female and male entrepreneurs and provide a context for further race and gender studies.