**5. Discussion of Key Results**

The analysis of the roles of wage and salary employment (WSE) and wage and salary income (WSI) portfolios in new business survival in MSAs revealed some interesting results. WSE-Risk was found to have a significant impact on new business survival in 2005, and the aggregate WSI portfolio on new business survival in 2010. Risk, manifested both in WSE and WSI, was consistently found to affect the likelihood of new business survival when investigated during different timeframes. Reverse causality or endogeneity may well be a factor in these results, and future work would need to incorporate robust identification strategies to untangle these relationships.
