信仰的力量:宗教有利于创业吗?

The Power of Religious Believing:Does Religion Influence Entrepreneurship?

传统创业理论一直忽略了一个重要的因素——宗教。基于CGSS(2006—2010)数据,本文从微观层面考察了宗教信仰对个体创业选择的影响。分析结果表明,相对于无宗教信仰者而言,有宗教信仰者创业的概率更大。使用历史上省级层面宗教活动场所作为工具变量,纠正二者之间可能存在的内生性问题后,这一正向影响依然存在。这一正向影响存在的主要原因可能在于宗教信仰改变了创业偏好,同时宗教组织所构建的社会资本放松了创业约束。此外,宗教对自雇层面创业的影响还存在一个作用机制,即由于宗教与现代教育之间潜在的冲突性,导致信徒人力资本投资下降,无法在劳动市场就业,被迫选择自雇型创业。

A factor has been ignored by the traditional entrepreneurship theory, that is, religion. Based on CGSS（2006-- 2010） data, this paper analyzes the relationship between religion and entrepreneurship. The results show that, no matter on the entrepreneurship of self employed style, or on the entrepreneurship of being boss style, religion has positive effects. By using the number of religious pots per province as the instrumental variable to resolve the endogenous problem, religion still has positive effects on entrepreneurship. The reasons may be that religious believing changes the attitudes to entrepreneurship and the religious social capital loosens the restrains of entrepreneurship. Besides, the reason why religion has positive effects on self employed maybe also that religion has negative effects on education because there are conflict between religion and education in modern China.