"Surfeiting, the appetite may sicken": Entrepreneurship and the happiness of nations
Wim Naudé, José Ernesto Amorós & Oscar Cristi
#2012-013
We know that entrepreneurs - at least those driven by opportunities -
can contribute to economic growth, productivity improvements and
competitiveness in national economies.. But do they contribute to
happiness on the country level? In other words, does the happiness of
nations depend on its entrepreneurs? And what about happy nations - are
they better places for entrepreneurs to start-up new businesses? In this
paper we survey the literature on entrepreneurship and happiness, and
use various data sources, including from the Global Entrepreneurship
Monitor, to find tentative evidence of an inverse U-shape relationship
between (opportunity) entrepreneurship and national happiness. We find
little evidence that a nation's happiness drives early-stage
entrepreneurial activity but we do find evidence that
opportunity-motivated entrepreneurs in happier nations may be less
concerned with high firm growth. Thus we conclude that
opportunity-motivated entrepreneurship may contribute to a nation's
happiness, but only up to a point. Not everybody should become
entrepreneurs, and the happiness of a nation cannot be indefinitely
increased by boosting the numbers of opportunity entrepreneurs.
Key words: Happiness, entrepreneurship, self-employment, life and job
satisfaction, development, subjective wellbeing, Global Entrepreneurship
Monitor.
JEL classification: I31, M13, O50