Entrepreneurship capital and regional growth

This paper introduces the concept of entrepreneurship capital and links it to the economic performance of regions. We give a definition of entrepreneurship capital and suggest different measures of this variable. Economic performance of regions is measured by the stock and the growth rate of regions, labor productivity. We find that entrepreneurship capital is stronger in urban areas and spatially correlated. Using regressions of production functions and growth equations, we find evidence that entrepreneurship capital has a positive and large impact on region's labor productivity. However for growth, this result holds only for risk-oriented measures of entrepreneurship capital and for densely populated regions. We derive policy implications from these findings.