Entrepreneurship capital spillovers at the local level

The paper analyses three underexplored issues in the entrepreneurship capital spillover literature, namely, its local nature, the generators and the receptors of such spillovers. For that purpose, we take advantage of the Ecuadorian census of establishments. Unlike previous evidence, we can estimate the spillovers at the establishment level, compute the entrepreneurship capital at the local level, and compare different permissiveness levels in the application of registration and tax legislation to businesses (i.e., the relative importance of the informal economy). In general, we find entrepreneurship capital spillovers at the local level. The spillover effects are lower when the entrepreneurship capital has been accumulated in informal businesses. By contrast, informal, large and more technologically developed establishments benefit more from these spillover effects. The paper discusses the implications of those findings for the design of public policies for promoting entrepreneurship.