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It is essential to validate whether a nation's economic strength always transpires into new business capacity. The present research strives to identify the key indicators to the proxy new business ecosystem of countries and critically evaluate the similarity through the lens of advanced Fuzzy Clustering Frameworks over the years.

The authors use Fuzzy C Means, Type 2 Fuzzy C Means, Fuzzy Possibilistic C Means and Fuzzy Possibilistic Product Partition C Means Clustering algorithm to discover the inherent groupings of the considered countries in terms of intricate patterns of geospatial new business capacity during 2015–2018. Additionally, the authors propose a Particle Swarm Optimization driven Gradient Boosting Regression methodology to measure the influence of the underlying indicators for the overall surge in new business.

The Fuzzy Clustering frameworks suggest the existence of two clusters of nations across the years. Several developing countries have emerged to cater praiseworthy state of the new business ecosystem. The ease of running a business has appeared to be the most influential feature that governs the overall New Business Density.

It is of paramount practical importance to conduct a periodic review of nations' overall new business ecosystem to draw action plans to emphasize and augment the key enablers linked to new business growth. Countries found to lack new business capacity despite enjoying adequate economic strength can focus effectively on weaker dimensions.

The research proposes a robust systematic framework for new business capacity across different economies, indicating that economic strength does not necessarily transpire to equivalent new business capacity.

This paper uses data on 125 countries to study whether entrepreneurship affects the level of economic development by taking a regional perspective. Specifically, the purpose of this paper is to investigate whether entrepreneurship leads to economic development by accounting for several other factors including the level of financial development, the business environment and governance and the quality of institutions.

To investigate the impact of entrepreneurship on economic development, the paper uses data available from the World Bank Group Entrepreneurship Survey database. The data are augmented with variables from the World Development Indicators and various Doing Business Reports. These variables are used to capture for other factors that affect the level of economic development.

The results indicate that economic development of the countries in the sample is affected by entrepreneurship even after controlling for regional variation. These results indicate that policy makers around the world need to put in place specific policies to promote the entrepreneurship culture among their population.

This paper uses a purely cross-sectional dimension to investigate the factors that impact on economic development with particular focus on entrepreneurship. This study uses cross-section data on various countries from different regions. However, panel data would allow the examination of causality issues and this could be a potential area of further research.

Entrepreneurship is increasingly seen as a development-promoting tool and it is recognized that countries, which facilitate entrepreneurship, tend to have higher economic development. The main finding of this paper is that irrespective of the level of development of any country or the region that it is located in, countries would gain from encouraging entrepreneurship.

The paper uses two broad proxies for entrepreneurship captured by the business density in each country and the number of newly formed limited firms. Interestingly, the paper also captures for regional variation to investigate if the relationship between economic development and entrepreneurship changes when different regions are being considered. The use of a merged data set is therefore a main contribution of this paper to the literature.

Given the relevance of entrepreneurship in nation-building, studies geared towards the promotion of new businesses are crucial. This study aims to contribute to the finance and entrepreneurship literature by providing empirical evidence on the role ease of doing business plays in promoting new business establishments amidst financial stability.

The study used the fixed and random effect estimation techniques as well as the impulse response function to analyse annual panel data covering 53 African countries.

The results indicate that regulatory quality and access to electricity promote new business establishments. Also, to experience the direct effect of financial stability on new business establishments or entrepreneurship in Africa, the role of the ease of doing business cannot be isolated. The policy implication is that the creation of an enabling business environment is crucial for new business establishments.

The sample only includes countries in Africa. Future or further studies may want to expand the sample size and also consider a comparative analysis where this analysis will be done plus another region so that the differences in findings can be known.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the role of ease of doing business on new business establishments in the presence of financial stability in Africa.

Financial inclusion policy focuses on bringing the less privileged groups into the formal financial system. Financial inclusion has a lot of benefits in the society. It can reduce the level of poverty, inequality and encourage business startup. This study aims to examine the impact of financial inclusion on entrepreneurship in selected African countries.

This paper examines how financial inclusion impacts entrepreneurship in 13 selected African countries using data from World Bank Development Indicators, IMF’s International Financial Statistics, doing business and World Bank Entrepreneurship Survey for the period of 2005-2016. It uses panel data regression techniques such as random effect, IV estimation and robust least square.

The results show that financial inclusion has a significant and positive effect on entrepreneurship in Africa. This result is robust to both alternative measures of financial inclusion and alternative estimators.

The possible relationship between financial inclusion and entrepreneurial development has been an ongoing debate in other developing countries. However, this issue has been neglected in the African region. There are little or no evidence to support the possible relationship in Africa. This paper makes an important contribution in this respect and further provides insightful information in the ongoing debate.

Using an extensive data set of 137 nations spanning the period 2002–2014, this paper aims to examine the effect of banking sector openness on entrepreneurship, as measured by new business entry rate.

The paper uses a panel data estimation framework covering 137 nations during 2002–2014. This study uses fixed effects, two-stage instrumental variables, two-step systems-generalized method of moments and difference-in-difference estimation methodologies.

Greater banking sector openness significantly increases new business formations. This paper finds a one-unit increase in the share of non-residential bank loans leads to 1.25 new business start-ups in the average nation. Likewise, a unit increase in the ratio of external to domestic deposits raises new business formation by 1.31 new businesses. Furthermore, the positive impact of banking sector openness on entrepreneurial activities is strengthened in nations with deeper financial markets, ones with better business environments to start a business and those with higher economic growth and development.

These findings have key implications for policy measures on both institutional business entry reforms and banking sector openness and the interaction between the two. From a policy perspective, the results show greater banking sector openness can only maximize its benefits on entrepreneurship in the presence of an effective institutional framework and sound macroeconomic fundamentals in host nations. It is also imperative that policymakers simplify regulations for the entry of new businesses. Additionally, achieving higher economic growth rates and greater economic affluence should allow both current and potential business owners to respond better to changes in financing conditions like greater access to loans from foreign banks.

Entrepreneurship and new business formation are central to any economic and business activity in a nation. The entrance of new firms into an economy creates jobs, fosters research, diffusion of knowledge and innovation and contributes to economic growth. Liberalizing a nation’s banking industry may represent an invaluable source of capital for new entrepreneurs and foster the creation of new companies. However, there is scant literature that has empirically examined the impact of opening up a nation’s banking sector on new business formations.

This study examines whether institutional quality affects the relationship between income inequality and entrepreneurial activity. The authors specifically examine whether the greasing or sanding effect holds for the relationship between income inequality and entrepreneurship, while moderating for institutional quality. The greasing effects suggest that income inequality can promote entrepreneurial activity, while the sanding effects disincentivise it.

The authors examine this relationship using a sample of 100 advanced and developing countries from 2006 to 2018 using a dynamic panel estimator to control endogeneity and simultaneity. Additionally, the authors include an interaction term to estimate the marginal effects of income inequality, while moderating for institutional quality. Furthermore, the authors differentiate between six measures of institutional quality.

Overall, the authors find that institutional quality and income inequality have a positive and significant impact on entrepreneurial activity. However, when moderating for institutional quality, the findings show that the marginal impact of income inequality is negative for countries with low levels of institutional quality. The authors show that the rule of law and government effectiveness are effective moderators in terms of magnitude. Furthermore, the authors find that the sanding effect of income inequality is observed in developing economies, even when moderating for institutional quality.

The major limitation lies in the estimation of entrepreneurial activity, which is measured using new business formation. While this is commonly used, it focuses on formal entrepreneurial activities and overlooks the informal economy.

This study provides new empirical evidence on whether institutional quality can moderate and explain the puzzling link between entrepreneurial activity and income inequality.

This study examines whether Internet penetration has a complementary effect on the relationship between financial access and new business formation in 57 developing economies from 2006 to 2018.

Using the generalised least squares estimator, the authors employ a framework that allows us to distinguish between the marginal impact of financial access on new business formation in developing economies with high and low levels of Internet penetration rates. Furthermore, the authors distinguish between financial institutions and financial markets.

The authors find that increased accessibility for financial institutions promotes entrepreneurial activity, while financial market access has a negative relationship with new business formation. Furthermore, the authors find that the marginal impact of financial institution access increases in magnitude as Internet penetration increases. The effect does not hold for financial markets.

The major limitation lies in the measurement of new business formation, as it focuses on the formal entrepreneurial sector and overlooks the informal economy and entrepreneurs operating as sole proprietors.

Policymakers should continue to promote the development of the information communication and technology sector and digitalisation policy while increasing financial accessibility in the financial system.

This study provides new empirical evidence on the greasing role of technology to leverage the impact of financial access on new business formation. Furthermore, the study distinguishes this effect by differentiating between financial institutions and markets.

The purpose of this paper is to establish a more robust empirical support for the long established postulation by Adam Smith and Joseph Schumpeter that human capital and institutions enable Schumpeterian entrepreneurship, which, in turn, facilitates economic growth.

Adopting entrepreneurial orientation (EO) (i.e. innovativeness, proactiveness and risk taking; Mthanti and Ojah, 2017, Research Policy, 46:4, pp. 724-739) as the measure of Schumpeterian entrepreneurship at the macro-level, and using a sample of 93 countries, over 1980-2008, the authors employ system Generalised Method of Moments to investigate institutions and human capital as possible determinants of Schumpeterian entrepreneurship (EO).

The authors find that the human capital-EO nexus is robust across economic development levels. However, there is a cross-country variation in the institutions-EO nexus. In line with theoretical predictions, institutions indeed drive EO in middle-to-high-income countries. However, in low-income countries, building institutions in order to foster EO yields perverse outcomes, which, for us and especially based on deeper analysis, suggest that improving the quality of institutions may not be a necessary precondition for EO/growth policy in low-income countries. Furthermore, the authors find that EO is a highly persistent series, with self-reinforcing network effects, i.e. lofty EO behaviour encourages more lofty EO behaviour.

Drivers of macro EO are erroneously taken as of growth. This empirical analysis corrects the sequencing.

Policy practice must acknowledge macro-EO importantly has both direct and indirect growth effects.

This study is the first to empirically test the theoretical sequence between drivers of growth/EO and economic growth.

Literature has pointed that conventional financial development theories have inconclusive role on motivating new businesses. New ventures often consider the conventional system that passes through risk and provides fixed-interest lending as a burden. Comparatively, Islamic finance contributes using participative and equitable substitute for startups and has a potential in promoting new businesses. This study aims to investigate the holistic financial development index quadratic effect on entrepreneurship and include the moderating role of Islamic financing at national level.

Islamic banks of 21 nations constitute the unbalanced panel data. Financial development and entrepreneurship indices were developed using factor analysis and panel median regression to estimate the nonlinear financial market development effects and Islamic financing moderation model.

The results indicated that low financial market development is entrepreneurship deterring because of interest burden effect, which could be eased with a proportional increase in the Islamic financing, which is participative. The moderating effect has led to the categorization of the sample countries into entrepreneurship promoting and entrepreneurship discouraging with respect to the current incidence of financial market development and Islamic financing, which can help policymakers in understanding the entrepreneurship promoting combination of financial development and Islamic financing.

Central banks and Shari’ah advisory councils can adopt Islamic financing transition in the national financial inclusion policy for new business facilitation.

This study is instrumental in exploring the assessment of introducing Islamic financing while developing the financial sector on multidimensional entrepreneurship.

One of the main obstacles to the flourishment of African entrepreneurship is financial constraint. Existing studies on the nexus between entrepreneurship and financial development are inconclusive, while the position of African economies remains unknown. The purpose of this paper is to empirically study the impact of financial development on entrepreneurship in Africa.

This study utilizes data of 20 selected countries in Africa over a period of 2006–2017. International Monetary Fund (IMF) data on broad-based financial development were combined with World Bank Entrepreneurship database. This study uses system generalized methods of moments (system GMM) technique and the recently developed dynamic panel threshold based on dynamic panel GMM.

The following findings emerged: financial development does not spur entrepreneurship in Africa; there is a threshold at which financial development improves the level of African entrepreneurship; and the tendency of financial development to improve the level of entrepreneurship is conditioned on conducive business regulation and strong institutional quality at a specific threshold value.

This is one of the few studies that examines the impact of financial development on entrepreneurship in Africa. This study shows that the financial development relies on the effectiveness of regulatory environment to extend loan and other financial services to new firm entrants. In addition, the results of this study reveal that the assumption of linearity in the nexus between finance and entrepreneurship is not tenable for the case of Africa. Therefore, policymakers should keep on developing African financial system to accelerate the pace of entrepreneurship development.