Author(s):
1. Sofia Gomes, 2. Isabel Neira Gómez, Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, Spain

Abstract:
In recent years has emphasized the role of entrepreneurship in national economic growth, highlighting the impact of entrepreneurial activity on GDP per capita, consumption, promoting employment, productivity and other variables that affect the level of economic countries. This Article shall be an empirical study assessing the impact of entrepreneurship on economic growth in OECD countries, using different measures of entrepreneurial activity collected in different databases (business creation rate collected by the OECD - Eurostat Entrepreneurship Indicators Programme, WBGES - World Bank Group Entrepreneurship Snapshots and IBE - International Benchmark of Entrepreneurs, business owners rate themselves collected by Compendia - Comparative Data for International Analysis and rate of entrepreneurial activity collected by the GEM - Global Entrepreneurship Monitor). Part of an expanded role of the Cobb-Douglas where fall classical variables (labor and capital) and variable entrepreneurship and used static and dynamic econometric models estimated in Eviews 6.0. The database contains data for 30 OECD countries and 20-year time period (1990-2010). The results confirm the multifaceted dimension of entrepreneurship with different impacts on GDP per capita according to the measure used and was chosen as the best measure of entrepreneurship, in empirical terms, the rate of entrepreneurial activity in GEM due to its definition, range , robustness empirical and consistency. The other measures of entrepreneurship, the results are not consistent and reveal themselves fragile, and these measures have results that end up on and/or sub - measure entrepreneurial activity countries. It is concluded that entrepreneurship influences economic growth in OECD countries, but it is necessary to look for new and better measures to recognize more clearly the effects of the same dimension and that such measures do not include only the economic aspect of entrepreneurship but also social aspects, political, cultural and others.

Key words:
Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurial Activity, Business Creation and Economic Growth

Date of abstract submission:
08.10.2013.

Conference:
REDETE 2014 - Researching Economic Development and Entrepreneurship in Transition Economies