This paper empirically investigates the impact of willingness to take risks on entrepreneurship. We use a quarter century of data on second-generation Americans from Current Population Surveys in conjunction with a measure of willingness to take risks based on the Global Preference Survey. The level of risk taking in the country of origin is found to have a positive and significant impact on the likelihood of being an entrepreneur. A one-standard deviation increase in risk taking increases the probability of being an entrepreneur by 18%. We find that risk taking is also robust to other preference and cultural factors such as trust, patience, and individualism, as well as several deep-root determinants of development.

本文实证研究了冒险意愿对创业的影响。我们使用当前人口调查中关于第二代美国人的四分之一个世纪的数据，并结合基于全球偏好调查的冒险意愿衡量标准。发现原籍国的风险承担水平对成为企业家的可能性有积极和重大的影响。风险承担每增加一个标准差，成为企业家的可能性就会增加 18%。我们发现冒险精神对其他偏好和文化因素（如信任、耐心和个人主义）以及一些根深蒂固的发展决定因素也很有效。