Superentrepreneurship in Europe Compared to Other Industrialised Regions

Arbeitspapier

The overwhelming majority of self-employed individuals are not entrepreneurial in the Schumpeterian sense. To unmistakably identify Schumpeterian entrepreneurs, we focus on self-made billionaires (in USD) from the Forbes Magazine list who became wealthy by founding new firms. In this way, we identify 996 billionaire entrepreneurs in over fifty countries during the 1996-2010 period. Interestingly, the rate of billionaire entrepreneurs per capita correlates negatively with self-employment rates. Countries with higher incomes, higher trust, lower taxes, more venture capital investment and lower regulatory burdens have higher entrepreneurship rates but less self-employment. Europe has a higher self-employment rate than the United States and East Asia. At the same time, Europe has a lower entrepreneurship rate than competitor regions. Europe underperforms in entrepreneurship despite having advantages such as a skilled labour force, good infrastructure, large markets and strong performance in technological innovation.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IFN Working Paper ; No. 1049

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Regulation and Industrial Policy: General ; New Firms; Startups ; Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives ; Capitalist Systems: Property Rights
• Subject: Entrepreneurship ; Innovation ; Institutions ; Regulation ; Self-employment

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Henrekson, Magnus ; Sanandaji, Tino
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN)
• (where): Stockholm
• (when): 2014

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/109078
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:41 AM CET