聪明人更愿意创业吗?——来自中国的经验发现

Are the Smart More Willing to Be Entrepreneurs?——Empirical Evidence from China

本文利用"中国家庭追踪调查(CFPS)"数据实证分析了个人的认知能力对其创业的影响。考虑了内生性问题的回归结果显示,总体而言,不论是否区分具体的创业类型,个人的综合认知能力对其是否创业不存在显著影响;表明中国的聪明人并没有更愿意创业。但这种影响会因行业管制水平不同而异:在管制水平较高的行业中,个人更高的综合认知能力会显著降低其创业概率;在管制水平较低的行业中却完全相反。因此,在管制水平较低的行业中,中国的聪明人更愿意创业;而在管制水平较高的行业中正好相反。本文进一步实证考察了字词能力、数学能力和记忆力等三个具体维度的认知能力对创业的影响,发现仅有数学能力能够显著促进创业。本文的政策涵义在于,政府应当更加积极有效地推进简政放权,减少各行各业中不必要和不合理的行政干预,这样才能将中国人的聪明才智更好地吸引到创业中。

Summary ： Are smart people more willing to become entrepreneurs？ The literature asserts there are a number of factors that influence entrepreneurship. However, very few empirical studies address the role of cognitive ability （ Djankov et al. , 2005; Djankov et al., 2006a; Levine and Rubinstein, 2016）. Among those that do, several recent studies find that cognitive abilities have significantly positive effects on entrepreneurship. Does this belief still exist in China, or is there any difference？ We try to answer these questions in this paper. We are the first to use the large-sample data from the Chinese Family Panel Studies （CFPS） of 2010 and 2012 to explore the effect of cognitive abilities （i. e. , smartness） on entrepreneurship. After controlling for the endogeneity problem, regressions show no significant effect for Chinese people, regardless of the type of entrepreneurship. In this sense, smart Chinese people are on average not more willing to become entrepreneurs, a finding that seems inconsistent with the current international fact. However, when using the industrial regulation data from Shi et al. （2007） and dividing the entire sample into two subsamples： ＂loosely regulated＂ versus ＂ tightly regulated＂ industries, we find a significantly negative correlation between cognitive abilities and entrepreneurship in tightly regulated industries, and a significantly positive correlation in loosely regulated industries. Thus, smart Chinese people are more willing to become entrepreneurs in loosely regulated industries. Furthermore, we study the effect of three dimensions of cognitive abilities （ character recognition, counting ability and memory ability） on entrepreneurship. The results show that whereas the effect of memory ability on entrepreneurship is not significant, the effect of counting ability is significantly positive. The effects of character recognition and counting ability on entrepreneurship differ between tightly and loosely regulated industries; however, the results are not robust. This paper overcomes three shortcomings of the current related studies. First, the use of a large empirical sample improves the representativeness of our conclusions. Second, after controlling for the endogenous problem of cognitive abilities, we can guarantee the lack of bias in the regression＇s findings. Third, we emphasize the role of government regulation in moderating the effect of cognitive abilities on entrepreneurship across industries. This is especially important in China, where government regulations are widespread and the market mechanism is still underdeveloped. We argue that from the perspective of regulations, a better understanding of the role cognitive abilities play in entrepreneurship may help the government make and improve public policies concerning entrepreneurship. Our results suggest that this is vital to reducing both unnecessary and improper government intervention in China, especially in tightly regulated industries, where more smart people are willing to become entrepreneurs.