Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Uhlaner, L.M.
Author-Name-Last: Uhlaner
Author-Name-First: Lorraine
Author-Name: Thurik, A.R.
Author-Name-Last: Thurik
Author-Name-First: Roy
Author-Person: pth26
Author-Name: Hutjes, J.
Author-Name-Last: Hutjes
Title: Post-Materialism as a Cultural Factor Influencing Entrepreneurial Activity across Nations
Abstract: The study of the determinants of entrepreneurship at the country level has been dominated by economic influences. The relative stability of  differences in levels of entrepreneurship across coun-tries suggests that other forces such as certain institutional and/or cultural  factors are at play. The objective of this paper is to explore how  post-materialism explains differences in entrepreneurial activity  across countries. Entrepreneurial activity is defined as the percent  of a country?s popula-tion that is self-employed, using a broad  definition that also includes CEOs of both unincorporated and legally  incorporated establishments. The measure for post-materialism is based  upon Ingle-hart?s four-item post-materialism index. Because of the  known interactions between economic and cultural factors found in  previous research, a set of economic and cultural factors is included to provide a clearer picture of the independent role post-materialism  plays in prediction of self-employment levels. In particular, education,  life satisfaction, church attendance and political (left or right)  extremism are used as control variables in our analyses using data of 14  OECD countries over in recent period. Findings confirm the significance of post-materialism in predicting self-employment even when controlling for economic and cultural factors. However, strong covariation between post-materialism and other cultural factors makes it difficult to  clearly discriminate be-tween the effects.
Creation-Date: 2002-06-25
File-URL: https://repub.eur.nl/pub/208/ERS-2002-062-STR.pdf
File-Format: application/pdf
Series: RePEc:ems:eureri
Number: ERS-2002-62-STR
Classification-JEL: L20, M, M13, O57, P52, Z1
Keywords: comparative studies of countries, cultural economics, entrepreneurship, macro-economic analyses of economic development
Handle: RePEc:ems:eureri:208