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Title: Entrepreneurial Culture or Institutions? A Twentieth Century Resolution

Citation Type: Book, Section

Publication Year: 2010

ISBN: 9781848930711

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Abstract: This paper tests the strength and persistence of cultural influences on entrepreneurship over the best part of a century. Comparison of marginal self-employment propensities of US immigrant groups in 1910 and 2000 suggests a number of stable customary stimuli, deduced from national origins. In accordance with the ‘cultural critique’, the English were persistently prone to less entrepreneurship than other US immigrant groups, once controls for entrepreneurship influences are included. The Dutch were consistently about averagely entrepreneurial, not as precocious as might be expected if the predominant Protestant religion encouraged entrepreneurship. Conversely Weber’s identification of nineteenth century Catholic culture as inimical to economic development is not born out in the twentieth century by the sustained entrepreneurship of Cubans and Italians in the United States. The strongest entrepreneurial cultures were exhibited by those originating from the Middle East, Greece and Turkey, though some historical interpretation is necessary to establish who these people were. The inference from these patterns is that entrepreneurial culture must be of minor significance for economic development compared with institutional influences.

Url: http://orca.cf.ac.uk/23994/

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Authors: Foreman-Peck, James S; Peng, Zhou

Editors: Garcia-Ruiz, Jose L; Toninelli, Pier Angelo

Pages: 125-142

Volume Title: The determinants of entrepreneurship: leadership, culture, institutions

Publisher: Pickering and Chatto

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Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Labor Force and Occupational Structure, Other

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