China’s economic transition has greatly unleashed entrepreneurship and private enterprise development since the 1980s. In this article, we review the recent literature on entrepreneurship in China and summarize 11 articles included in this China special issue. Our literature review shows that the unique institutional and cultural settings behind the Chinese economy have led to some distinct perspectives of studying entrepreneurship. The articles included in this special issue further advance the entrepreneurship research embedded in the Chinese context and shed lights on entrepreneurship policy in emerging economies. Most recently, China has recognized entrepreneurship as one of the key driving forces of sustained economic development and is accordingly making many efforts to encourage and facilitate entrepreneurial activity. Following this new development, it is imperative to study China’s national and regional entrepreneurship systems in future research.

Entrepreneurship in China

Childhood adversity and the propensity for entrepreneurship: A quasi-experimental study of the Great Chinese Famine

Increasingly, scholars and policy makers have become interested in the relationship between entrepreneurship and upward mobility, particularly as it pertains to the poor, minority group members, an...

Timothy Bates, Race, Self-Employment and Upward Mobility: An Illusive American Dream (Washington, Dc; the Woodrow Wilson Center Press, and Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press) Lisa J. Servon, Bootstrap Capital: Microenterprises and the American Poor (Washington Dc: Brookings, Institution Press)

Digital divide or dividend? The impact of digital finance on the migrants' entrepreneurship in less developed regions of China

We utilize the implementation of the 1986 Compulsory Education Law in China as a natural experiment to examine the relationship between educational attainment and migrant entrepreneurship. Using data from the 2017 China Migrants Dynamics Survey, results from our preferred two-stage least square model, which uses instrumental variable and difference-in-differences estimators to correct for endogeneity, suggest that having one additional year of education generates a 3.5 percentage points increase in the probability of being an employer entrepreneur vis-a-vis an employee, and a 4.7 percentage points increase in the probability of being an employer entrepreneur vis-a-vis a solo entrepreneur. Having better education, however, does not affect the propensity to become an entrepreneur in general vis-a-vis an employee or a solo entrepreneur vis-a-vis an employee. These results are robust to various checks including alternative estimation methods and ways of defining entrepreneurship. We also explore the channels through which educational attainment influences whether one chooses to become an employer entrepreneur. Our findings suggest that assortative mating, difficulties experienced in the host location, permanent settlement intention and social capital mediate the relationship between better education and the choice of both becoming an employer entrepreneur vis-a-vis a solo entrepreneur and an employer entrepreneur vis-a-vis an employee, while risk preferences are a mechanism through which education affects the probability of becoming an employer entrepreneur as opposed to a solo entrepreneur.

Education and migrant entrepreneurship in urban China

China is experiencing rapid urbanization during which millions of migrants move from rural to urban areas. Recently, China initiated the national strategy of “mass entrepreneurship and innovation” to tap into the innovative potential and promote entrepreneurial development among the general public, with rural migrants being one of the targeted groups of this policy. This context calls for a better understanding of rural migrants’ entrepreneurial formation and transition. Using the 2012 and 2014 Chinese Labor-force Dynamics Survey (CLDS) data, we test the importance of human capital, social capital, and community trust on migrants’ entrepreneurial entry with cross-sectional and panel data analyses. We find that rural migrants’ entrepreneurship rates and entrepreneurial entry rates surpass both their urban resident and rural resident counterparts, indicating the active role they play in urban business landscape. While individual characteristics and social networks play similar roles in these three groups’ entrepreneurial transition, rural migrants’ business activities are particularly shaped by their perception of communities. Further analysis of migrant-owned businesses reveals their over-representation in main-street industries but their firm performances are on par with other businesses, suggesting their positive economic contribution in cities.

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Migrant entrepreneurship in China: entrepreneurial transition and firm performance

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Migrant entrepreneurship in China: entrepreneurial transition and firm performance