TY - JOUR
T1 - The effect of early entrepreneurship education
T2 - Evidence from a field experiment
AU - Huber, Laura Rosendahl
AU - Sloof, Randolph
AU - Van Praag, Mirjam
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2014 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2014/11/1
Y1 - 2014/11/1
N2 - The aim of this study is to analyze the effectiveness of early entrepreneurship education. To this end, we conduct a randomized field experiment to evaluate a leading entrepreneurship education program that is taught worldwide in the final grade of primary school. We focus on pupils' development of entrepreneurship knowledge and a set of non-cognitive skills relevant for entrepreneurial activity. The results indicate that knowledge is unaffected by the program. However, the program has a robust positive effect on non-cognitive entrepreneurial skills. This is surprising since previous evaluations found zero or negative effects. Because these earlier studies all pertain to entrepreneurship education for adolescents, our result tentatively suggests that non-cognitive entrepreneurial skills are best developed at an early age. As the entrepreneurship program has various features besides its entrepreneurship content, we must leave it to future research to determine which specific element has the greatest impact on the development of non-cognitive entrepreneurial skills.
AB - The aim of this study is to analyze the effectiveness of early entrepreneurship education. To this end, we conduct a randomized field experiment to evaluate a leading entrepreneurship education program that is taught worldwide in the final grade of primary school. We focus on pupils' development of entrepreneurship knowledge and a set of non-cognitive skills relevant for entrepreneurial activity. The results indicate that knowledge is unaffected by the program. However, the program has a robust positive effect on non-cognitive entrepreneurial skills. This is surprising since previous evaluations found zero or negative effects. Because these earlier studies all pertain to entrepreneurship education for adolescents, our result tentatively suggests that non-cognitive entrepreneurial skills are best developed at an early age. As the entrepreneurship program has various features besides its entrepreneurship content, we must leave it to future research to determine which specific element has the greatest impact on the development of non-cognitive entrepreneurial skills.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84908347592&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2014.09.002
DO - 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2014.09.002
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84908347592
SN - 0014-2921
VL - 72
SP - 76
EP - 97
JO - European Economic Review
JF - European Economic Review
ER -