Nascent entrepreneurship and the level of economic development

Based upon two strands of literature, this paper hypothesizes a U-shaped relationship between a country’s rate of entrepreneurial dynamics and its level of economic development. This would imply a different scope for entrepreneurship policy across subsequent stages of development. Regressing GEM’s 2002 data for nascent entrepreneurship in 36 countries on the level of economic development as measured either by per capita income or by an index for innovative capacity, we find support for a U-shaped relationship. Testing our results against several control variables, evidence is again found for this relationship with economic development, in addition to significant effects of the business ownership rate (+),…