Research seminar "Cross-Regional Variations in the Level of Entrepreneurial Activity in Russia by Type of Motivation"
Speaker - Vladimir Elakhovsky (HSE Department of Statistics and Data Analysis)
Laboratory for Labour Market Studies and Centre for Labour Market Studies held the Research Seminar on February 2, 2016.
Theme: Cross-Regional Variations in the Level of Entrepreneurial Activity in Russia by Type of Motivation.
Speaker: Vladimir Elakhovsky, Assistant Professor at HSE Department of Statistics and Data Analysis.
Abstract: The paper deals with the difference in the share of opportunity-based early entrepreneurs among regions in Russia, which is an important indicator of the ‘quality’ of the entrepreneurial activity. We invent an index called the share of opportunity-based early entrepreneurs (SOBE) which is defined as the number of nascent entrepreneurs and new business owners who are driven by the search for new opportunities and towards the realization of their own values when starting-up and developing their businesses. It is shown that the differences in SOBE levels among Russian regions are statistically significant; cross-regional differences in the SOBE level reflect a certain set of regional social and economic factors right away or with an one-year or two-year lag; they may depend on the tempo of changes in a certain set of factors related to social and economic development in given regions. Among the confirmed hypotheses are the following: a successive growth of private investment in the regional economy as well as a stable increase of real wages of employed population are factors that decrease a region’s SOBE level; moreover, the higher the population’s access to PC and Internet at home, the higher is the related region’s SOBE level. The empirical part is based on the survey designed by the Higher School of Economics which was conducted in 2011 in 79 regions of Russia with a sample of 56 900 respondents. The survey is representative for the structure of the adult population in each of the surveyed regions.
Research was conducted with Alexander Chepurenko and Olga Obraztsova.
Working paper
Discussant: Olga Demidova, Associate Professor at HSE Department of Applied Economics.