THE CORRELATION BETWEEN THE TYPE OF ENTREPRENEURIAL ACTIVITY AND THE LEVEL OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT – PRELIMINARY EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS IN SELECTED COUNTRIES

Recently, a new direction of research on the connection between entrepreneurial activity and economic development has emerged. In the scientific literature that deals with the subject matter, there is a great variety of variables that express the level of entrepreneurial activity. The mentioned diversity is the result of differences in the interpretation of entrepreneurship. The research results vary depending on how entrepreneurship is interpreted, whether as a way of behaving, a business registration process, or a productive activity. This paper aims to: (a) present, in a systematic way, indicators that can be employed as direct or indirect measures of the level of entrepreneurship and (b) examine the level of their correlation with the level of economic development of the country. For the purpose of the mentioned analysis we used the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) 2024 data relevant and comparable for 47 selected countries. The results of our preliminary research indicate that economic development has a statistically significant positive correlation with internationally oriented entrepreneurs, while showing a statistically significant negative correlation with new businesses. Based on the obtained results, the conclusion is that there cannot be a general assessment of the correlation between entrepreneurship and level of economic development. Instead, it is necessary to consider the fact that entrepreneurship is a complex phenomenon. When analysing its correlation with macroeconomic performance, one should take into account some of its specificities (which are expressed and measured by different indicators). Additionally, our findings indicate that internationally oriented entrepreneurship is more prevalent in more developed countries.