Heterogeneity in entrepreneurship in developing countries: Risk, credit, and migration and the entrepreneurial propensity of youth and women

• Date: 01 August 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/rode.12703
• Author: Abdoulaye Seck,Dileni Gunewardena
• Published date: 01 August 2020

Rev Dev Econ. 2020;24:713–725. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/rode

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713

© 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Received: 18 October 2018

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Revised: 13 June 2020

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Accepted: 30 June 2020

DOI: 10.1111/rode.12703

SPECIAL SYMPOSIUM: PROMOTING YOUTH AND FEMALE

ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

Heterogeneity in entrepreneurship in developing

countries: Risk, credit, and migration and the

entrepreneurial propensity of youth and women

DileniGunewardena1

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AbdoulayeSeck2

1Department of Economics and Statistics,

University of Peradeniya, Peradeniya, Sri

Lanka

2Economics Department, Cheikh Anta

Diop University, Dakar, Senegal

Correspondence

Abdoulaye Seck, Economics Department,

Cheikh Anta Diop University, Dakar,

Senegal.

Email: abdoulaye.seck@ucad.edu.sn

Abstract

Promoting youth and female entrepreneurship is crucial to

inclusive growth and the future economic and social pros-

pects of developing countries. Evidence tends to suggest

that young and female entrepreneurs are in a minority, and

the extent and generating mechanisms of this outcome tend

to be country-specific. This collection of papers brings to-

gether recent empirical contributions exploring key drivers

of this heterogeneity entrepreneurial propensity of youth

and female in the context of a group of countries in Africa,

Latin America, and the Middle East, paying special atten-

tion to the role of and issues relating to access to credit,

attitudes to risk, and migratory status. A common thread

in all the papers is the effective role of risk, uncertainty,

and asymmetric information in the determination of entre-

preneurship and in the demand for and allocation of credit

when potential entrepreneurs are from specific groups, that

is, women, indigenous women, women and youth in con-

flict and post-conflict situations, and migrant youth. Based

on these results, the papers explore various challenges in

the implementation of public policies designed to promote

entrepreneurship within these specific segments of the

population.

JEL CLASSIFICATION

D22; L26; O5