https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8120-8887
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ABSTRACT
This paper investigates persistence in entrepreneurship across Italian provinces over the period 1927–2017. We distinguish between a ‘general’ dimension (sociopsychological) and a ‘specific’ dimension (learning) of the role model effect. Based on data obtained from a comprehensive survey conducted in 1927 by the Italian National Statistical Institute, we find different drivers of persistence across sectors: the only driver of persistence in high-technology sectors is the share of entrepreneurs using motive power (‘specific’ role model effect), while the share of industrial entrepreneurs (‘general’ role model effect) is an important driver of persistence in low-technology manufacturing and service sectors.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors are grateful for the comments from the editor and anonymous referees as well as from the participants in the Regional Studies Association (RSA) annual conference at the University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain (2019), and at the 60th Annual Conference of the Italian Economic Association (SIE) at the University of Palermo (2019).
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. The views expressed in this article by Marco Pini do not necessarily reflect those of the institutions to which he belongs.
Notes
1. In a different context, Fritsch et al. (Citation2019) investigated the role of cultural attitudes in favour of entrepreneurial activity for the actual start-up behaviour in Germany, combining historical self-employment data with a psychological measure for entrepreneurial attitudes. They found a positive relationship between the historical level of self-employment in a region and both the level of new business formation and the amount of innovation activity. Their results suggest that the general role model may also significantly affect the HTM sector start-up rates.
3. See Table A1 in the supplemental data online for a description of the economic activities included in each group.
4. Newly founded firms are those founded in each year. Colombelli (Citation2016) and Del Monte and Pennacchio (Citation2020) consider only the innovative start-ups according to Italian Law 221/2012 enrolled in the special section ‘innovative start-ups’ of the register of the chambers of commerce. To be defined as innovative, and therefore to be considered eligible for the inclusion in the register, the start-ups have to fulfil at least one of the following requirements: at least 15% of their total costs must go towards research and development (R&D) activities; more than one-third of employees must hold a doctorate, or be doctoral students, or two-thirds of employees must hold a master’s degree; and they must have registered at least one patent or an original computer programme. Both studies included in their dataset only corporations with a turnover below €5 million that started operating in the previous 48 months.
5. The data on the population are Census data, which are updated every 10 years.
6. During the second Italian industrialization wave, between 1951 and 1971, industrial production rose by 50% in 20 years.
7. In the case of industry, the threshold is the mean level (25%). In the case of services, since the distribution is highly skewed, we selected the industry with extremely high levels (public performances registers a share of firms using motive power of 41.9%, which is much higher than the average across services, which is 3%). For the sectors included in the variables Hist_HTM, Hist_LTM, Histmpowersett_ind and Histmpowersett_ser, see Table A3 in the supplemental data online.
8. We also estimated a spatial error model. The results (available from the authors on request) are very similar.
9. We thank an anonymous referee for suggesting this possible interpretation.
10. See also Sorrentino (Citation1991) to support this interpretation.