Intellectual property rights, human capital and types of entrepreneurship in emerging and developing countries

This study examines the single and combined effects of intellectual property rights (IPR) and human capital on the types of entrepreneurship in emerging and developing countries. For this purpose, we use the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor data for the entrepreneurial activity, while IPR are assessed based on the IPR index of World Economic Forum and human capital is measured by the gross enrollment ratio for secondary school. Linear regressions are applied on data for 15 countries during the period 2009-2013. Findings show that improvement of intellectual property rights has no influence on opportunity driven entrepreneurship and affects negatively necessity driven entrepreneurship. Furthermore, the improvement of the education level allows to increase opportunity driven entrepreneurship in emerging and developing countries. However, it does not allow to increase necessity entrepreneurship. Moreover, countries with higher human capital level benefit from the enhancement of the IPR system more than countries with lower human capital. In summary, our study recognizes the complementary role of intellectual property rights and human capital in increasing high quality entrepreneurship. We conclude that both intellectual property rights and human capital are effective tools of industrial policy in emerging and developing countries.