The Role of Institutions in Shaping Entrepreneurship in Selected Countries

Abstract

This paper investigates the relationship between the institutional setting, in terms of economic freedom, and entrepreneurship, as measured by self-employment in a panel data setting covering selected countries and the time-period 1990-2009. The measure of economic freedom includes five indices; size of government, the legal structure and security of property rights, access to sound money, the freedom of trade internationally, and the regulation of credit, labor and business. The empirical findings show that a small public sector, better legal structure and security of property rights tend to increase in entrepreneurship. Also, we find that the freedom of trade internationally and less regulation of credit, labor and business is negatively correlated to self-employment rate.

Keywords

• entrepreneurship
• self-employment
• institutions
• economic freedom