Entrepreneurship and regional dynamics: the case of Chile

ABSTRACT

During the last 20 years, social and political consensus has afforded the successful gradual implementation of entrepreneurship policy in Chile, transforming the country into one of the world’s most productive entrepreneurship ecosystems. However, the excessive political and economic centralization that has characterized Chile raises the question of whether spatial dependence influences entrepreneurship and what factors have led to this condition. By applying spatial econometric tools to data from 320 districts in Chile during the period 2013–2014, we conclude that there is spatial dependence among districts in Chile in relation to the creation of new businesses and that the immigrant population, the presence of different categories of universities and local patenting capacity are the variables with the greatest positive effect on this dependence.

KEYWORDS:

• Region
• neighbouring districts
• entrepreneurship ecosystem
• Chile

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. https://thegedi.org/global-entrepreneurship-and-development-index/.

2. The programme offers financing to foreign entrepreneurs on condition of a six-month stay in Chile while working on the construction or consolidation of their business.

3. Florida (2012) associates the authenticity of cities with their uniqueness and distinctiveness in regard to other cities. He states that the more unique a city is, the greater its ability to attract creative individuals.

4. The four groups are as follows: i. teaching universities characterized by fewer than 15 internationally indexed research articles per year (Group 1); ii. teaching universities productive in research, with more than 15 internationally indexed research articles per year (Group 2); iii. research universities in selective areas, characterized by fewer than 7 doctoral programmes in fewer than 3 thematic areas (Group 3); iv. research universities with 7 or more doctoral programmes in at least 3 thematic areas (Group 4).

5. Normalized according to (Tinagli 2009). Norway in the Creative Age. Norwegian Public Roads Administration.

6. The deleted districts were General Lagos, Colchane, Ollagüe, Juan Fernández, Isla de Pascua, Cochamó, Chaitén, Futaleufú, Hualaihué, Palena, Lago Verde, Guaitecas, O’Higgins, Tortel, Laguna Blanca, Río Verde, San Gregorio, Cabo de Hornos, Antárctica, Spring, Timaukel, Torres del Paine, Puqueldón, Natales, Porvenir and Punta Arenas.

7. This type of spatial autocorrelation is known as substantive spatial autocorrelation, in which the solution corresponds to include the spatially correlated omitted variable in the spatial delay model. Otherwise, when the residual spatial dependence is not caused by the erroneous omission of a delay of any of the variables, a case of residual spatial autocorrelation is present.

8. The CORFO-funded New Engineering 2030 program aims to train engineering students in innovation and entrepreneurship. The agency has funded seven grants covering 15 Colleges of Engineering throughout the whole country.

9. http://www.conicyt.cl/becas-conicyt/.

10. Chile lags behind in Research and Development (R&D) funding, as the country invests only 0.4% of its Gross Development Product (GDP) in R&D.

11. University of Chile, Catholic University of Chile, University of Santiago are located in Santiago; University of Concepción is located in Concepcion; and Catholic University of Valparaíso and Technical University Federico Santa María are located in Valparaíso.

12. The winners, selected by a jury of experts after a five-stage process, receive seed funding (US$5000–US$10,000) and business mentoring.