By Bob Meyer

Although Americans are known for their entrepreneurial zeal, it takes a lot more than zeal to establish a business.

The conventional view is that young people who succeed on their own often get a lot of financial help from their parents.

But are dad and mom’s deep pockets really that important? Not nearly as important, according to economists Thomas Dunn and Douglas Holtz-Eakin of Syracuse University, as was the employment status of the parents—especially the father’s.

Although they often chose different occupations, sons of self-employed men showed a strong tendency to become self-employed.

In other words, rather than financial capital, it was the parents’ human capital—as role models and imparters of management skills—that apparently enabled their sons to become successful entrepreneurs.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 13th, 2007 at 4:24 pm and is filed under Entrepreneurs & Small Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.