Skills and Youth Entrepreneurship in Africa: Analysis with Evidence from Swaziland

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. UNU-WIDER gratefully acknowledges the financial contributions to the research programme from the governments of Denmark, Finland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Terms of use: Documents inThe World Institute for Development Economics Research (WIDER) was established by the United Nations University (UNU) as its first research and training centre and started work in Helsinki, Finland in 1985. The Institute undertakes applied research and policy analysis on structural changes affecting the developing and transitional economies, provides a forum for the advocacy of policies leading to robust, equitable and environmentally sustainable growth, and promotes capacity strengthening and training in the field of economic and social policy-making. Work is carried out by staff researchers and visiting scholars in Helsinki and through networks of collaborating scholars and institutions around the world.UNU-WIDER, Katajanokanlaituri 6 B, 00160 Helsinki, Finland, wider.unu.eduThe views expressed in this publication are those of the author(s). Publication does not imply endorsement by the Institute or the United Nations University, nor by the programme/project sponsors, of any of the views expressed. Abstract:The shortages of entrepreneurial skills have lowered search effectiveness of potential young entrepreneurs and the rate of youth start-ups. Our paper contributes to closing the gap in the entrepreneurship and development literature with a model of costly firm creation and skill differences between young and adult entrepreneurs. The model shows that for young entrepreneurs facing high costs of searching for business opportunities, support for training is more effective in stimulating productive start-ups than subsidies. The case for interventions targeted at youth rises in societies with high costs of youth unemployment. We test the role of skills and training for productive youth entrepreneurship on data from a recent survey of entrepreneurs in Swaziland.

Openness, ICT and entrepreneurship in sub-Saharan Africa

“…According to recent literature, the growing unemployment (especially among the youth) would be accommodated for the most part by entrepreneurship from the private sector (Brixiova et al, 2015). This is essentially because public investments would be less linked to such population growth and rising unemployment in the future (Asongu, 2013a).…”

Openness, ICT and Entrepreneurship in Sub-Saharan Africa

“…Examining the importance of ICT in openness for entrepreneurship in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) fundamentally builds on four trends in the literature, notably, the: evolving potential of ICT; relevance of openness in 21 st century economic prosperity 2 ; role of entrepreneurship in addressing employment concerns in the post-2015 development agenda and gaps in the entrepreneurship literature (Qureshi et al, 2009;Brixiova et al, 2015;Asongu, 2015;Kuada, 2009Kuada, , 2015Asongu et al, 2016;Roztocki & Weistroffer, 2016;Asongu & Le Roux, 2017;Amavilah et al, 2017;Asongu & Biekpe, 2017).…”

“…would be accommodated for the most part by entrepreneurship from the private sector (Brixiova et al, 2015). This is essentially because public investments would be less linked to such population growth and rising unemployment in the future (Asongu, 2013a).…”

Remittances, ICT and Doing Business in Sub-Saharan Africa

“…Moreover, there is an important body of literature which has documented that in the long-run, issues related to population growth like youth unemployed will be more associated with the private sector compared to the public sector of the economies in Africa (see Asongu, 2013a;Brixiova et al, 2015). According to Grater et al (2016), ICT has created booming small enterprises which are key drivers of job creation.…”