This paper studies the effects of state fragility and economic development on necessity and opportunity-based individual entrepreneurial efforts. We contribute to the literature on the contextual determinants of entrepreneurship by examining multilevel data on 956,925 individuals from 51 countries for the period of 2005-2013. We show that state fragility has a positive effect on necessity-based entrepreneurial efforts while hindering opportunity-based efforts. Our findings illustrate that the level of economic development moderates the relationship between state fragility and necessity-driven entrepreneurial efforts reducing the likelihood of the latter. We discuss the implications for theory and for pro-entrepreneurship policy.
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