Entrepreneurship education ranks highly on policy agendas in Europe and the US, but little research is available to assess its impacts. In this context it is of primary importance to understand whether entrepreneurship education raises intentions to be entrepreneurial generally or whether it helps students determine how well suited they are for entrepreneurship. We develop a theoretical model of Bayesian learning in which entrepreneurship education generates signals which help students to evaluate their own aptitude for entrepreneurial tasks. We derive predictions from the model and test them using data from a compulsory entrepreneurship course at a German university. Using survey responses from 189 students ex ante and ex post, we find that entrepreneurial propensity declined somewhat in spite of generally good evaluations of the class. Our tests of Bayesian updating provide support for the notion that students receive valuable signals and learn about their own type in the entrepreneurship course.
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Richard Weber & Georg von Graevenitz & Dietmar Harhoff, 2009.
"The Effects of Entrepreneurship Education,"
Discussion Papers
269, SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.
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Find related papers by JEL classification: D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search, Learning, and Information J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity L26 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Entrepreneurship M13 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting - - Business Administration - - - New Firms; Startups
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