No Experience Necessary: The Peer Effects of Intended Entrepreneurs

Under a randomized setting, this paper finds workers with entrepreneurial ambitions—intended entrepreneurs—are (i) far more common than workers with past entrepreneurial experience and (ii) increase the rate of entrepreneurship among their peers. Peer effects are persistent, stronger for tighter networks, and extend to the decision to join a startup. As intended peers explain half of the variation in entrepreneurship rates in our sample, our results demonstrate that intended entrepreneurs, even those that never personally start a firm, represent a vital component of the entrepreneurial ecosystem.