Taxes, start-up costs, and innovative entrepreneurship

Abstract

Prior research investigates the role of start-up costs and taxes with regard to entrepreneurship. Yet, little distinction is made regarding the type of entrepreneurship, particularly innovative versus non-innovative entrepreneurship. We shall argue that start-up costs and taxes are associated in different ways with innovative versus non-innovative entrepreneurship. Taxes being recurring costs should mainly relate to innovative entrepreneurship, whereas start-up costs being one-off costs should mainly relate to non-innovative entrepreneurship. Analyzing a dataset of 632,116 individuals, including 43,223 entrepreneurs from 53 countries, we can partially confirm our predictions. Corporate taxes show a negative relationship with innovative entrepreneurship, whereas income taxes seem to have no relationship. High start-up costs have a positive relationship with innovative entrepreneurship, although this finding only holds true in cross-sectional investigations. Our paper contributes to the discussion on how governmental regulation and taxes relate to entrepreneurship.