Improved governance and lower start-up costs may not be sufficient for encouraging the type of entrepreneurship that matters for economic growth. Using panel data on 60 countries spanning the period 2003-07 this paper establishes that (i) opportunity-motivated entrepreneurship (as opposed to necessity-motivated entrepreneurship) drives economic growth; (ii) governance and the start-up costs are not significant determinants of opportunity entrepreneurship; and (iii) better governance leads to higher economic growth. This implies that better governance and lower start-up costs, widely advocated as measures to promote entrepreneurship in developing countries, may not in fact be enough. Indeed, despite poorer governance and higher start-up costs, rates of opportunity-motivated entrepreneurship are higher in developing countries. Second, better governance can lead to better growth through reducing the impact of destructive entrepreneurship (including rent-seeking), even though this may not result in a reallocation of effort from destructive towards opportunity-motivated entrepreneurship. The paper concludes by discussing whether these results call in question the popular belief that a lack of opportunity-motivated entrepreneurship constrains developing country growth, and whether there is justification for more proactive government support for entrepreneurship.
- Publisher:
-
UNU-WIDER
- Series:
- WIDER Research Paper
- Volume:
- 2009/01
- Title:
- Out with the sleaze, in with the ease: Insufficient for entrepreneurial development?
- Authors:
- Wim Naudé
- Publication date:
- January 2009
- ISSN Web:
- 1810-2611
- ISBN 13 Web:
- 9789292301682
- Copyright holder:
- © UNU-WIDER
- Copyright year:
- 2009
- Keywords:
- entrepreneurship, development, institutions
- JEL:
- M13, L26, O10, O14
- Project:
-
Promoting Entrepreneurial Capacity
- Sponsor:
- UNU-WIDER gratefully acknowledges the financial contribution to the project by the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, and the financial contributions to the research programme by the governments of Denmark (Royal Ministry of Foreign Affairs), Finland (Ministry for Foreign Affairs), Norway (Royal Ministry of Foreign Affairs), Sweden (Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency—Sida) and the United Kingdom (Department for International Development).
- Format:
- online