University Curriculum and Entrepreneurial Entry of Students from Technology-based Universities

Abstract

This exploratory paper extends the literatures on student entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial entry by empirically investigating the relationship between the university curriculum of students and recent graduates from a technology-based university and their decision to become entrepreneurs after university enrolment. First, we provide rich empirical evidence on student entrepreneurship using the population of the alumni who obtained a Laurea Magistrale degree in the 2005-2009 period from Politecnico di Milano, the largest technical university in Italy. Then, we run econometric estimates and show that students and recent graduates are more likely to become entrepreneurs if they completed economics and management courses and exhibit a more specialized university curriculum. The effect of curriculum specialization is positively moderated by the final degree score when we focus on firm creation till the year after graduation.