IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ajecsc/v67y2008i5p915-939.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Entrepreneurial Culture and Economic Growth: Revisiting McClelland's Thesis

Author

Listed:
  • Sjoerd Beugelsdijk
  • Roger Smeets

Abstract

We reestimate McClelland's (1961) thesis on entrepreneurial culture and economic development. McClelland found a strong positive correlation between measures of need for achievement (N achievement) imagery in school textbooks and the subsequent rate of economic growth. Benchmarking our findings against generally accepted empirical growth models, we find no support for his thesis. This leads us to rethink the relationship between entrepreneurial culture and economic growth.

Suggested Citation

  • Sjoerd Beugelsdijk & Roger Smeets, 2008. "Entrepreneurial Culture and Economic Growth: Revisiting McClelland's Thesis," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 67(5), pages 915-939, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ajecsc:v:67:y:2008:i:5:p:915-939
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1536-7150.2008.00602.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1536-7150.2008.00602.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1536-7150.2008.00602.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gilleard, Christopher J., 1989. "The achieving society revisited: A further analysis of the relation between national economic growth and need achievement," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 21-34, March.
    2. Robert J. Barro, 1991. "Economic Growth in a Cross Section of Countries," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(2), pages 407-443.
    3. Frederic L. Pryor, 2005. "National Values and Economic Growth," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 64(2), pages 451-483, April.
    4. Sayre P. Schatz, 1965. "n Achievement and Economic Growth: A Critique," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 79(2), pages 234-241.
    5. N. Gregory Mankiw & David Romer & David N. Weil, 1992. "A Contribution to the Empirics of Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(2), pages 407-437.
    6. Sander Wennekers & André Stel & Roy Thurik & Paul Reynolds, 2008. "Nascent entrepreneurship and the level of economic development," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 30(3), pages 325-325, March.
    7. Cochran, Thomas C., 1960. "Cultural Factors in Economic Growth," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(4), pages 515-530, December.
    8. World Bank, 2008. "World Development Indicators 2008," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 28241.
    9. World Bank, 2008. "World Development Indicators 2008," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 11855.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Alba Manresa & Andrea Bikfalvi & Alexandra Simon, 2018. "The Use And Determinants Of Training And Development For Creativity And Innovation," International Journal of Innovation Management (ijim), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 22(07), pages 1-28, October.
    2. Che Mohd Zulkifli bin Che Omar & Anas Tajuddin, 2012. "Malaysian One District One Industry (ODOI): The Awareness Acculturation," International Journal of Academic Research in Accounting, Finance and Management Sciences, Human Resource Management Academic Research Society, International Journal of Academic Research in Accounting, Finance and Management Sciences, vol. 2(2), pages 159-165, April.
    3. Tambovtsev, Vitaly, 2015. "The myth of the “Culture code” in economic research," Russian Journal of Economics, Elsevier, vol. 1(3), pages 294-312.
    4. Petrik Runst, 2013. "Post-Socialist Culture and Entrepreneurship," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 72(3), pages 593-626, July.
    5. André van Hoorn & Robbert Maseland, 2010. "Cultural Differences Between East and West Germany After 1991: Communist Values vs. Economic Performance?," Post-Print hal-00911822, HAL.
    6. van Hoorn, André & Maseland, Robbert, 2010. "Cultural differences between East and West Germany after 1991: Communist values versus economic performance?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 76(3), pages 791-804, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sjoerd Beugelsdijk, 2010. "Entrepreneurial Culture, Regional Innovativeness and Economic Growth," Springer Books, in: Andreas Freytag & Roy Thurik (ed.), Entrepreneurship and Culture, chapter 0, pages 129-154, Springer.
    2. Glenn P. Jenkins & Armin Zeinali, 2014. "Cost-Effective Infrastructure Choices In Education: Location, Build Or Repair," Development Discussion Papers 2013-08, JDI Executive Programs.
    3. Christopher Blattman & Edward Miguel, 2010. "Civil War," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(1), pages 3-57, March.
    4. Stefanie Kleimeier & Roald Versteeg, 2010. "Project finance as a driver of economic growth in low‐income countries," Review of Financial Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 19(2), pages 49-59, April.
    5. Christopher Blattman, 2009. "Civil War: A Review of Fifty Years of Research," Working Papers id:2231, eSocialSciences.
    6. M. Danquah & B. Ouattara, 2014. "Productivity Growth, Human Capital And Distance To Frontier In Sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of Economic Development, Chung-Ang Unviersity, Department of Economics, vol. 39(4), pages 27-48, December.
    7. Khaled Elmawazini & Sonny Nwankwo, 2013. "Globalisation and Income Gap between Rich and Poor Nations," Economic Issues Journal Articles, Economic Issues, vol. 18(2), pages 19-40, September.
    8. Vrachimis Konstantinos & Zachariadis Marios, 2013. "A contribution to the empirics of welfare growth," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 13(1), pages 213-244, April.
    9. Fagerberg, Jan & Srholec, Martin & Verspagen, Bart, 2010. "Innovation and Economic Development," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 833-872, Elsevier.
    10. Lawrence King & Osvaldo Gómez Martínez, 2010. "Property Rights Reform and Development: A Critique of the Cross-National Regression Literature," Working Papers wp216, Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
    11. Michael Binder & Georgios Georgiadis, 2010. "Determinants of Human Development: Insights from State-Dependent Panel Models," Human Development Research Papers (2009 to present) HDRP-2010-24, Human Development Report Office (HDRO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
    12. Carmignani, Fabrizio & Mandeville, Thomas, 2014. "Never been industrialized: A tale of African structural change," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 124-137.
    13. Markus Eberhardt & Francis Teal, 2010. "Aggregation versus Heterogeneity in Cross-Country Growth Empirics," CSAE Working Paper Series 2010-32, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    14. Mirjam Praag & André Stel, 2013. "The more business owners, the merrier? The role of tertiary education," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 41(2), pages 335-357, August.
    15. Aamer S. Abu-Qarn & Suleiman Abu-Bader, 2009. "Getting Income Shares Right," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 23(3), pages 254-266, August.
    16. Najia SAQIB, 2013. "Impact of Development and Efficiency of Financial Sector on Economic Growth: Empirical Evidence from Developing Countries," Journal of Knowledge Management, Economics and Information Technology, ScientificPapers.org, vol. 3(3), pages 1-9, June.
    17. Jolanda Hessels & Peter van der Zwan & Mark Sanders, 2013. "Entrepreneurial activity, industry orientation, and economic growth," Scales Research Reports H201307, EIM Business and Policy Research.
    18. Nurmalia & Djoni Hartono & Irfani Fithria Ummul Muzayanah, 2020. "The Roles of Entrepreneurship on Regional Economic Growth in Indonesia," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 11(1), pages 28-41, March.
    19. Paul Collier & Marguerite Duponchel, 2010. "The Economic Legacy of Civil War: Firm Level Evidence from Sierra Leone," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2010-090, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    20. Douglas Gollin, 2014. "The Lewis Model: A 60-Year Retrospective," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 28(3), pages 71-88, Summer.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ajecsc:v:67:y:2008:i:5:p:915-939. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0002-9246 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.