Entrepreneurs' Acceptance of Formal Institutions: A Cross-country Analysis

Institutional settings and the resulting incentive structures are crucial for economic development. The type of entrepreneurial activity and the entrepreneurial effort are especially dependent on underlying incentive structures. We argue that institutions with better incentive structures for entrepreneurs are perceived as being of higher quality by this group. We find empirical evidence that high institutional quality increases the willingness of the self-employed to accept these institutions. Furthermore, institutional quality affects the deviation in acceptance of self-employed to non-self-employed such that lower institutional quality is related to less acceptance by entrepreneurs compared to the rest of society.