Monday, April 25, 2011

Entrepreneurship and finger length

Entrepreneurship is the engine of growth, thus is it is important to understand what makes entrepreneurs tick and how to identify potential entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship courses in BS (business schools) are often dismissed as BS (...), but they have the merit to explain the ropes of setting up a business, thus lowering the hurdle. Still not everyone has what it takes.

Luigi Guiso and Aldo Rustichini make the rather surprising discovery that people with lower second to fourth finger length ratio exhibit stronger entrepreneurial skills. There is actually some theory behind this correlation. Indeed, this finger length ratio is associated with prenatal testosterone. Thus it appears that biology has something to do with entrepreneurship and ultimately growth. Does this mean we should now adopt a policy injecting fetuses with testosterone to bolster the nation's growth rate? No, because these entrepreneurs also seem to be over-confident, tend to build empires and thus sub-optimal firm size. But I wonder when bankers will start measuring their clients' hands.

1 comment:

Erin Chavez said...

Hmm. What an interesting take on entrepreneurship!

I think to identify a promising entrepreneur, one should look at the upbringing of the individual. Were they supported in their endeavors? Were they committed to various projects that they saw through to the end? Were they encouraged to follow their passions?

I think when we begin to foster the child, from birth, that their ideas and thoughts matter, we will have a brand new wave of entrepreneurs.

Of course, that does not mean that we can't become entrepreneurial at a later stage in life! We simply have to make the decision about what we want - then go after it - with GUSTO!

I bet whoever read this though looked at their fingers. I did. :)