Investigating the Interaction of Entrepreneurship and Economic Growth with Emphasis on Institutional Quality in OECD and OPEC Countries: Application of Simultaneous Equation Model in Panel Data

In the last decades, economic growth is one of the important issues among researchers because economic growth rate is one of the important factors in investigating the performance of different countries' economic policies. So, an investigation of influencing factors on economic growth is necessary. Entrepreneurship can significantly impact economic growth by creating innovation, design, diversity of product production, and increasing the efficiency and competition of firms, and also higher economic growth will also increase the incentive of innovation and knowledge for entrepreneurs. Also, countries that are on the path to economic growth lead to motivating entrepreneurs innovation and knowledge. As a result, economic growth can affect creating entrepreneurship. Therefore, economic growth and entrepreneurship are recognized as two essential components in economic. In recent economic theories, institutional factors are influential in assessing the relationship between economic growth and entrepreneurship. Therefore, this research seeks to investigate the interaction effects between entrepreneurship and economic growth, emphasizing the quality of institutional factors using the simultaneous equation model and panel data for the OECD and OPEC in the 2000-2016 periods.

Theoretical Framework:

Entrepreneurship is a purposeful activity to create, maintain, and develop profitable businesses. These entrepreneurial activities can be considered three sections: 1) Total entrepreneurial activities; 2) Opportunity for entrepreneurial activities; 3) The need for entrepreneurial activities. The combination of these three components creates a new index called global entrepreneurship. From the perspective of the institutionalism approach, the environment shaping the economy affects entrepreneurship dynamics within each country. This environment is known through interdependencies between growth, economic development, and institutions. Entrepreneurs are the main perpetrators of change that react to unplanned stimuli within the institutional framework.

The present study seeks to assess the interactions between entrepreneurship and economic growth and its relation with institutional quality using the simultaneous equation approach in panel data for two groups of OECD and OPEC countries during the period 2000-2016. The two groups of OECD and OPEC countries differ significantly in terms of economic structure. So the results may be different for them. The selection of these two groups of countries can help obtain actual results of the relationship between entrepreneurship and economic growth and the role of institutional quality on them. Many studies have shown that there are two-way feedback effects between economic growth and entrepreneurship. This feedback on both sides leads to the bias results in the traditional regression. Therefore, in such cases, the system of simultaneous equations is used. In this research, instrumental variables (IV) and generalized method of moments (GMM) methods are used to estimate the equations. The explanatory variables for the economic growth equation are entrepreneurial index, institutional quality index, life expectancy, total government expenditures, fixed capital formation, and labor force growth. The explanatory variables for the entrepreneurship index equation are economic growth, the number of formal stages of starting a business, trust in ability and skill, and institutional quality index.

The results indicate that the variables of economic growth and entrepreneurship have a positive and significant effect on each other, and also the institutional quality variable also has a positive effect on the relationship between the two components. Also, for the OECD countries, the variables of life expectancy, the growth rate of fixed capital formation, and the labor productivity growth have a positive effect, and the total government expenditures hurt economic growth. For the OPEC countries, labor force growth has a positive effect, and total government expenditure has a negative effect on economic growth.

Conclusion and Suggestions:

This research seeks to assess the interaction between entrepreneurship and economic growth with an emphasis on institutional quality. Based on the empirical findings, economic growth and entrepreneurship variables have a positive and significant effect on each other, and the institutional quality variable also has a positive effect on the relationship between the two components. According to the results, encouraging entrepreneurship, the growth of the real private sector in the economy, and the reduction of business start-ups to increase economic growth are recommended.