IN RECENT YEARS the notion that failure brings rewards has become so venerated by business thinkers (and publications) that you could be forgiven for thinking yourself lacking if you haven’t suffered at least one calamitous, abject disaster in your career. In truth, people who have tried and failed at launching their own startups know that it incurs many unrecouped costs: time, sweat, emotion, and, most often, money.

But new research reveals an unexpected reward for those who abandon the entrepreneurial life. According to a paper by finance professor Gustavo Manso of the University of California at Berkeley, self- employment does, in fact, pay off—often in the form of higher wages when the person returns to work at another company. “You don’t need to be crazy to be entrepreneurial,” says Manso, who holds the school’s William A. and Betty H. Hasler Chair in New Enterprise Development. “There’s a reasonable pay-off.”

Manso analysed the earnings of more than 5,000 Americans between 1979 and 2012, using data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. They showed that the typical person makes less as an entrepreneur than he could earn at a bigger company. Most of those people go back to salaried jobs after two years or less—and that’s where it gets interesting.