Evaluating efficiency and technology gaps of the national systems of entrepreneurship using stochastic DEA and club convergence

This study aims to develop a framework to analyze the efficiency of the national ecosystems for supporting high-quality early-stage entrepreneurship to gain insights into the rationales and effectiveness of public policies. A model combining a stochastic DEA model and the metafrontier method is used to explore the entrepreneurial ecosystem efficiency across countries that operate under different technologies. Using data from 30 countries over the period 2013–2018, we highlight the efficiency variation of countries according to their level of economic development. Our results suggest that efficiency-driven countries are the technology leaders in entrepreneurship, and innovation-driven countries are the followers. Then a convergence analysis is applied to determine if similar or divergent paths are observed between countries regarding their entrepreneurial efficiency and technology. The results indicate that there is a lack of overall convergence; instead, countries are converging into several clubs with different characteristics. Finally, by combining the convergence clubs of efficiency and technology, we construct a managerial decision-making matrix to provide benchmarks and improvement suggestions.