Attitudes toward Risk and Family Entrepreneurship: An Empirical Analysis Based on China Household Finance Survey in 2011, 2013 and 2015

Abstract

Based on the panel data of China Household Finance Survey （CHFS） in 2011, 2013 and 2015, this paper empirically studies the impact of attitudes toward risk on the entrepreneurial decision-making and intensity of urban and rural households in China, and identifies and tests the mechanism that affects the entrepreneurial scale. The results show that: （1） The higher the family risk preference is, the more favorable it is for the family to make entrepreneurial decisions and business decisions. After dealing with the potential endogenous problems through instrumental variables, the impact is still significant, and the effect is more obvious in the rural household registration families living in cities and towns. （2） Families with risk preference are more likely to expand formal and informal financing channels and ease financing constraints, which is more conducive to family entrepreneurial and business decision-making. （3） Families with risk preference have a higher level of interpersonal trust, so they are more likely to carry out family entrepreneurship or enhance the scale of entrepreneurship. This paper provides new empirical evidence for understanding the mechanism of attitudes toward risk influencing family entrepreneurial behavior choices and family entrepreneurial intensity, and provides policy reference for how to better encourage family entrepreneurship and promote the financing of start-ups in the process of China’s economic transformation from the high-speed growth stage to the high-quality development stage.