Studies argue that macroeconomic contractions create immediate incentives for individuals to pursue entrepreneurship. However, research has not addressed whether past macroeconomic contractions imprint on individuals and influence their future entrepreneurship. Integrating literature on the business cycle and imprinting with insights from lifespan psychology, we develop and test competing theoretical arguments aligned to two distinct life stages about when a macroeconomic contraction will imprint on individuals to influence their future entrepreneurship, and how such effects are imprinted. Our findings show that only contractions experienced during early adulthood influence entrepreneurship and this effect is transmitted culturally via country-level preferences for time discounting.

研究认为，宏观经济紧缩会立即激励个人追求创业精神。然而，研究尚未解决过去的宏观经济收缩是否会对个人产生影响并影响他们未来的创业精神。整合有关商业周期的文献并借鉴寿命心理学的见解，我们开发并测试了针对两个不同生命阶段的相互竞争的理论论点，即宏观经济收缩何时会对个人产生影响以影响他们未来的创业精神，以及如何这样的效果是烙印的。我们的研究结果表明，只有在成年早期经历的紧缩才会影响创业精神，并且这种影响通过国家层面的时间折扣偏好在文化上传播。