Explaining Cross-National Variations in Entrepreneurship: The Role of Social Protection and Political Culture

Martin Robson ()
Additional contact information
Martin Robson: Department of Economics and Finance

Chapter Chapter 12 in Entrepreneurship and Culture, 2010, pp 245-267 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Among academics and policy-makers, there is increasing recognition of the importance of a successful entrepreneurial sector to the promotion of wealth creation and economic prosperity.1 However, there remains considerable debate over the question of what kind of economic environment provides the best conditions for entrepreneurial activity. In the literature on entrepreneurship, a long line of work dating back to the seminal contribution of Knight (1921) emphasises the role of entrepreneurs as risk takers, who seek out new opportunities and develop new products and processes in an environment of uncertainty. Under this view, the agents in an economy who are drawn into entrepreneurship are those with the least aversion to risk (see Kihlstrom and Laffont 1979, for example). However, formal theoretical models generate ambiguous predictions concerning the effects of an increase in risk on the rate of entrepreneurship in an economy. A priori, therefore it is unclear whether mechanisms designed to reduce the degree of risk faced by individuals in an economy will tend to promote or discourage the level of entrepreneurship.

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Activity; Social Protection; Unemployment Benefit; Replacement Ratio; Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-540-87910-7_12

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9783540879107

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-540-87910-7_12

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Springer Books from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().