Interrelationships between religion and entrepreneurship

The importance of entrepreneurship is increasing in the world economy nowadays. When we observe the differences between the rates of entrepreneurial activity among different religions, we may infer that the tendency to become an entrepreneur is impacted by religion. In this thesis, we test this relationship between religion and entrepreneurs using world-wide data from the sixth data collection wave of the World Value Survey. We find that religious adherence, in general, has a positive impact on the tendency to become an entrepreneur. However, adherence to the largest religious denomination in a country does not have a significant impact on entrepreneurship. The expected significant stronger influence of Christianity, specifically, in comparison to the other religions on the tendency to become an entrepreneur is not confirmed. In fact, consistent evidence for the significance of the effect of Christianity on entrepreneurship is not found in this paper. The results indicate that the effects on entrepreneurship of being adherent to Christianity or having Christianity as the largest religious denomination in a country do not differ significantly from the effects on entrepreneurship of being adherent to no religion or having a majority of non-religious inhabitants in a country. The rate of entrepreneurship among people adherent to other religions than Christianity is significant higher than the rates of entrepreneurship among the Christians and the group of individuals adherent to no religion. These results contribute to our understanding of the relationship between religion and entrepreneurship.