The role of human capital, innovation, and social capital in starting and funding businesses: a cross-country analysis around the world

In recent years, the interest of academia on the financing of new ventures has progressively grown through a proliferation of empirical studies that analyze the determinants of venture capital in different sectors and countries (Da Rin et al. 2013; Grilli et al., 2019). However, an explanation of the roles of human capital, innovation, and social capital as different means to attract venture capital across countries is still missing. In our preliminary literature review, we reviewed 60 papers where 18 examine the determinants of venture capital and of those four addresses the effects of education (all of them from a micro or a firm-level point of view), nine consider research and development (R&D) as a variable for innovation, two address other innovation variables, and one considers social capital, specifically through the variable trust. No study addresses all these variables together.