|
on Entrepreneurship |
| By: | Nicola Gennaioli; Rafael La Porta; Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes; Andrei Shleifer |
| Abstract: | We investigate the determinants of regional development using a newly constructed database of 1569 sub-national regions from 110 countries covering 74 percent of the world’s surface and 96 percent of its GDP. We combine the cross-regional analysis of geographic, institutional, cultural, and human capital determinants of regional development with an examination of productivity in several thousand establishments located in these regions. To organize the discussion, we present a new model of regional development that introduces into a standard migration framework elements of both the Lucas (1978) model of the allocation of talent between entrepreneurship and work, and the Lucas (1988) model of human capital externalities. The evidence points to the paramount importance of human capital in accounting for regional differences in development, but also suggests from model estimation and calibration that entrepreneurial inputs and human capital externalities are essential for understanding the data. |
| JEL: | L26 O11 O43 O47 R11 |
| Date: | 2011–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17158&r=ent |
| By: | Maksim Belitski (Brunel University); Julia Korosteleva (University College London) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the variation in entrepreneurship across cities of the Commonwealth of Independent States during 1995-2008, utilising a unique dataset and employing the System Generalised Method of Moments technique. Our findings suggest that banking reform facilitates entrepreneurship, whereas the size of the state discourages it. Our results confirm a U-shaped relationship between per-capita income and entrepreneurship. We also find that cities with higher concentration of universities are likely to have higher entrepreneurial entry. This provides some evidence for the importance of agglomeration economies in terms of higher concentration of knowledge which may lead to intensified exchange of ideas driving knowledge-based entrepreneurship in the region. |
| Keywords: | Entrepreneurship, small business, urbanisation, transition, CIS Urban Audit |
| Date: | 2011–06–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wfo:wpaper:y:2011:i:397&r=ent |
| By: | Fafchamps, Marcel; McKenzie, David; McKenzie, David; Quinn, Simon; Woodruff, Christopher |
| Abstract: | Standard models of investment predict that credit-constrained firms should grow rapidly when given additional capital, and that how this capital is provided should not affect decisions to invest in the business or consume the capital. The authors randomly gave cash and in-kind grants to male- and female-owned microenterprises in urban Ghana. Their findings cast doubt on the ability of capital alone to stimulate the growth of female microenterprises. First, while the average treatment effects of the in-kind grants are large and positive for both males and females, the gain in profits is almost zero for women with initial profits below the median, suggesting that capital alone is not enough to grow subsistence enterprises owned by women. Second, for women they strongly reject equality of the cash and in-kind grants; only in-kind grants lead to growth in business profits. The results for men also suggest a lower impact of cash, but differences between cash and in-kind grants are less robust. The difference in the effects of cash and in-kind grants is associated more with a lack of self-control than with external pressure. As a result, the manner in which funding is provided affects microenterprise growth. |
| Keywords: | Debt Markets,Economic Theory&Research,Investment and Investment Climate,Science Education,Scientific Research&Science Parks |
| Date: | 2011–06–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5706&r=ent |
| By: | Dick Johannes; Hussinger Katrin; Blumberg Boris; Hagedoorn John (METEOR) |
| Abstract: | A common phenomenon in entrepreneurship is that employees turn away from employmentto found their own businesses. Prior literature discusses the former employers’characteristics that influence the creation of entrepreneurial ventures. An investigation ofwhether these characteristics also affect the success of the spawned ventures is missing so far. This paper contributes to the literature by showing that entrepreneurial ventures spawned by well performing firms are financially more successful than ventures stemming from bad performing firms. This suggests that spawned entrepreneurs are able to exploit valuable knowledge from their previous employers which impacts their ventures’ performance positively. The analysis is based on a linked employee-employer dataset for the Netherlands for the period 1999-2004. |
| Keywords: | Strategy; |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:umamet:2011034&r=ent |
| By: | Mirjam van Praag (University of Amsterdam); Andre van Stel (EIM Business and Policy Research, Zoetermeer) |
| Abstract: | Policy in developed countries is often based on the assumption that higher business ownership rates induce economic value. Recent microeconomic empirical evidence casts doubts on the validity of this assumption or, at least, leads to a more nuanced view: Especially the top performing business owners are responsible for the value creation of business owners. Other labor market participants would contribute more to economic value creation as an employee than a business owner. The implied existence of an 'optimal' business ownership rate would thus replace the dictum of 'the more business owners, the merrier'. We attempt to establish whether there is such an optimal level, while investigating the role of tertiary education. Two findings stand out. First, by estimating extended versions of traditional Cobb Douglas production functions on a sample of 19 OECD countries over the period 1981-2006, we find indeed robust evidence of an optimal business ownership rate (at around 12.5%, on average). Second, the relation between business ownership and macroeconomic productivity is steeper for countries with higher participation rates in tertiary education. Thus, the optimal business ownership rate tends to decrease with tertiary education levels. This is consistent with microeconomic theory and evidence showing that entrepreneurs with superior levels of human capital run larger firms. |
| Keywords: | entrepreneurship; business ownership; human capital; (returns to) education; cross-country comparison; production function |
| JEL: | E23 J24 L26 O40 O57 |
| Date: | 2011–04–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:uvatin:20110067&r=ent |
| By: | Gilles Campagnolo; Christel Vivel |
| Abstract: | In the present paper we are going to examine texts by Werner Sombart and Friedrich von Wieser on entrepreneurship and the capitalist economy using an interdisciplinary approach focused on economics but also dealing with economic sociology and political philosophy. We believe that both authors have been largely neglected, thus overlooking the main source of the theory of the entrepreneur in debates held in German language and between Germany and Austria around the 1900s. Without excluding earlier major references (such as Jean-Baptiste Say, the first French economist at the Collège de France) we shall demonstrate that for both our authors the entrepreneur is the keystone of a renewed understanding of capitalism and the modern economy of their times. They stressed the origins, functions and roles of the entrepreneur and showed that there cannot exist only a single entrepreneurial form but there must necessarily be several ones, depending on the context. Two lessons can be drawn from their texts: 1/ the entrepreneur’s action needs to be reinstalled in the social, economic and institutional context; 2/ the results of the actions of entrepreneurs are inherently difficult to predict because the action responds to institutional changes and is the outcome of such changes. |
| Date: | 2011–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:icr:wpicer:11-2011&r=ent |
| By: | Caliendo, Marco (IZA); Kritikos, Alexander S. (DIW Berlin) |
| Abstract: | What makes the entrepreneurial personality is the key question we seek to answer in the special issue of the Journal of Economic Psychology on "Personality and Entrepreneurship". The contributions are clustered around questions regarding the linkage between personality, socio-economic factors and entrepreneurial development. Results further explain the gender puzzle, while, at the same time, it is clear that stereotypes of what makes the ideal entrepreneur must be revisited. This conclusion is based on new insights into the effects that variables, such as risk tolerance, trust and reciprocity, the value for autonomy and also external role models, have on entrepreneurial decision making. On a more general note, it is clear that more informative longitudinal data sets at the individual level are needed in order to find conclusive answers. In an ideal world researchers would have access to data that includes personality characteristics and psychological traits, motivational factors and cognitive skills. In this respect the research community needs to find new ways to collect these data and make them available for entrepreneurship research. |
| Keywords: | trust, entrepreneurship, personality characteristics, risk aversion, autonomy |
| JEL: | D81 J23 L26 M13 |
| Date: | 2011–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5790&r=ent |
| By: | Hottenrott, Hanna; Peters, Bettina |
| Abstract: | This study presents a novel empirical approach to identify financing constraints for innovation based on the concept of an ideal test as suggested by Hall (2008). Firms were offered a hypothetical payment and were asked to choose between alternatives of use. If they selected additional innovation projects, they must have had some unexploited investment opportunities that were not profitable using more costly external finance. We attribute constraints for innovation not only to lacking financing, but also to firms' innovative capability. Econometric results show that financial constraints do not depend on the availability of internal funds per se, but that they are driven by innovative capability. -- |
| Keywords: | Innovation,financing constraints,innovative capability,multivariate probit models |
| JEL: | O31 O32 C35 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:09081r&r=ent |