ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND ECONOMIC GROWTH

This study was carried out to analyze the relationship between Economic growth and entrepreneurship in Rwanda with the use of the production function to find out the short-term relationship and long-term joint relationship, the causality effect among the variables of the study and proofing the U-shaped relationships between independent entrepreneurs and economic growth. By employing a time series analysis of data imported to the E-views 12, for further analysis from the excel sheet of the World Bank data set of 1991 to 2021 quarterly data of 124 observations. Therefore, the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model is employed to cater the relationship of the determinants of production function which are Capital measured by Gross capital formation (percentage of GDP) (CAP), Entrepreneurship indicated by Self-employed (from total employment) (LENT) and Labor force (LAB) to explain the growth with Real GDP measured in constant year 2015 (GDP) indicator. In fact, the truth shows that the hypothesis of a joint positive long-run relationship of Entrepreneurship to growth is strongly significant. Whereby it has a weak negative midterm effect, by assuming other facts as constant, the 1 percent increase (inelastic) in Entrepreneurship of 1 previous period is associated with a 0.498 increase in growth and a 1 percent increase in Entrepreneurship in the fifth previous period is associated with a 0.528 increase in growth with meaningless negative midterm fluctuation. This shows, that both the long-run and short-run elasticities supports the validity of the U-shaped relationship between economic growth and the rate of entrepreneurship development. the analysis also employed the causality method, and the evidence from the Granger-causality shows the unidirectional causality between Entrepreneurship and Growth, Capital and Growth, and Entrepreneurship and Capital. Which have policy implications for Rwanda, that emphasizing on the joint increase of factors of production with entrepreneurship will raise output with short-term fluctuation. Finally, we conclude that the entrepreneurship indicated by self-employment (independent entrepreneur), jointly with other factors of growth increases output production in the short term and with the limitation of midterm decrease which requires policies to transform start-ups into highly growing firms that leads to effective employment creation, poverty reduction, increase standard of living, increased level of income, and human development. It is also noteworthy that the Rwandan Government promotes entrepreneurship development.

本研究旨在分析卢旺达经济增长与创业活动之间的关联，通过生产函数探究二者的短期关系与长期联合关系，厘清研究变量间的因果效应，并验证独立创业者与经济增长之间的U型关联。本研究采用1991年至2021年的季度数据，共包含124组观测值，数据源自世界银行数据集，先导入Excel表格后，再借助EViews 12软件开展时序分析。本研究选用自回归分布滞后（autoregressive distributed lag, ARDL）模型，对生产函数的各决定变量进行分析：其中资本（CAP）以总资本形成额（占GDP百分比）衡量，创业活动（LENT）以总就业中的自主创业者占比表征，劳动力（LAB）以劳动力总量衡量，而经济增长的衡量指标为以2015年不变价计算的实际GDP（GDP）。实证结果表明，创业活动对经济增长的长期正向联合关系假说显著成立。在其他条件不变的情况下，滞后一期的创业活动每提升1%（弹性不足），将带动经济增长0.498个单位；滞后五期的创业活动每提升1%，将带动经济增长0.528个单位，仅伴随无实际经济意义的中期负向波动。上述结果表明，长短期弹性均验证了经济增长与创业活动发展水平之间的U型关联有效性。本研究同时采用因果检验方法，格兰杰因果检验结果显示，创业活动与经济增长、资本与经济增长、创业活动与资本之间均存在单向因果关系。该结论对卢旺达具有政策启示：协同提升生产要素与创业活动水平，可在抵消短期波动的同时提升产出。本研究最终得出结论：以自主创业（独立创业者）衡量的创业活动，与其他增长要素协同作用，可在短期内提升产出，但存在中期产出下滑的局限，这需要通过政策引导，将初创企业培育为高成长型企业，从而实现有效就业创造、贫困减少、生活水平提升、收入水平提高与人类发展。此外值得注意的是，卢旺达政府当前正大力推动创业活动发展。