Economic poverty, common prosperity, and underdog entrepreneurship

This study explores underdog entrepreneurship by investigating how economic poverty affects an individual’s entrepreneurial choice with varying levels of regional common prosperity. Using a sample of 5,250 individual-year observations from nine provincial regions in rural China, we find that economic poverty is conducive to entrepreneurship. Moreover, our results show that the effect of economic poverty on the choice of entrepreneurship as a career is weakened by regional economic development but strengthened by regional income equality. Our study provides implications to enrich the discussion of common prosperity and extends existing literature on underdog entrepreneurship by considering unique aspects of regional contexts.