Assessment of the Impact of Entrepreneurship on Economic Growth: A Ghanaian Case Study

Abstract

It is interesting to note that entrepreneurship is contributing immensely towards the economic growth and development of most nations. Particularly in less developed economies where it is somewhat difficult to get jobs in the public or private sectors, we see a lot of people trying to start-up their own small businesses and in the long run these business contribute their quota towards economic growth and development. The objective of this write up is therefore to assess the impact of start-ups and own businesses on economic growth and development using Ghana a case study. To achieve this, the Ease of Doing Business data which is measured by

the score of starting a business from the world bank databank and the Self- Employment which is also measured as a percentage of total employment are used

as proxies for entrepreneurship. To test if the data obtained is authentic and that it is not going to produce any spurious results, a stationary test is conducted using the Augmented Dickey Fuller (ADF) test. After, the study employs the Fully Modified Ordinary Least Square (FM-OLS) to examine the relationship amongst the variables of interest. Using Ghana as the case study and a period between 2000 to 2020, the results from the FM-OLS indicate that the respective dependent variables have a significant and positive impact on economic growth.