Discussion
Venture Capital Activity
On the findings page, I include multiple visualizations that aim to test my hypothesis that the arrival of Start-Up Chile resulted in spillover effects upon the region that increased overall venture capital activity. In the first visualization titled "Venture Capital Deals in Chile (2000-2019), I mapped the aggregated data of venture capital transactions by year in Chile using Tableau. I used reference line to indicate the year when Start-Up Chile was founded, 2010. Based just on trends, the data suggests that there may be support for our hypothesis, as there seems to be a significant rise in venture capital deals after the program arrived in 2010. This means that there indeed may have been some spillover effects upon venture capital activity as a result of the program's arrival.
In the second visualization titled "Venture Capital Deals in Latin America (2000-2019)," I demonstrate how the quantity of venture capital deals in Chile compared to the rest of Latin America. It is interesting because the trend in Latin America post-2010 also seems to be similar to that of just Chile. This makes me wonder whether this might have been a continental trend, or also something just unique to Chile. Also given that Start-Up Chile was the first accelerator on the continent, it may have had spillover effects upon other Latin American nations. It is also important to note that Chile, despite its relatively small size, contributes a sizable portion to overall venture capital activity in Latin America.
In order to gain more insight into the trends we analyzed in the last visualization, I decided to create a chart titled "Percent Change in Venture Capital Deals in Chile and Latin Ameirca (2000-2019)." This took the data utilized in the first and second visualizations, and then calculated the percent change of venture capitals for Chile and Latin America separately. The results were very interesting. Chile's percent change in venture capital activity, depicted in yellow, is notably higher on average than that of its Latin American peers. Chile had an average percent change of ~49% and Latin America had an average percentage change of ~18%. By using percentages, we can see a more accurate picture of how Chile compares to the rest of Latin America, and our data seems to suggest that Chile may have experienced a unique surge in venture capital activity post-2010.
As a quick additional visualization, I decided to visualize the total amount of venture capital invested in Chile compared to Latin American in terms of total dollars. The results were very surprising beccause there is significant similarity between the trends visible in both the Chile and greater Latin America data. They both seem to peak and curve at similar points, which may indiciate that the continent as a whole may experience some similar trends in venture capital.
Finally, in order to see if the difference in venture capital activity upon Start-Up Chile's arrival was truly statistically significant, Professor Pizzorno and I ran a linear aggression that compared the mean number of venture capital deals from 2000-2009 and 2010-2019. The analysis resulted in a p-value of 0.0049, which indicates that there indeed is a statistically significant difference in the venture capital activity before versus after 2010. Although not causal evidence, this is important because it suggests that the arrival of Start-Up Chile and startup accelerators in general can potentially increase overall venture capital activity in a region.
Entrepreneurial Activity
In order to test my second hypothesis that the arrival of Start-Up Chile resulted in peer effects that led to greater entrepreneurial activity, I visualized entrepreneurial intentions and activity from 2002-2019. The first visualization, titled "Entrepreneurial Intentions in Chile (2002-2019)," show annual survey data on levels of entrepreneurial intentions overtime. It suggests support for this hypothesis as there clearly seems to be an upward trend in levels of entrepreneurial intentions upon Start-Up Chile being founded in 2010. It is possible that by hearing more stories of successful entrepreneurs participating in the program, whether in their network or in the news, Chileans may have felt more encouraged and inclined to also want to pursue a career in entrepreneurship.
Similarly, I hoped to directly measure entrepreneurial activity levels in Chile over time in the second visualization titled "Total Early-Stage Entrepreneurial Activity in Chile (2002-2019)." Once again, the trend seems to suggest that there was definitely a positive trend in entrepreneurial activity after the program was established in 2010. This could also be due to peer effects as well, as more people might also pursue entrepreneurship if more peers in their network or vicinity are also pursuing it as well. Also, it is important to note that the trends in this visualization are very similar to the prior one on entrepreneurial intentions, which may indicate that these variables are highly related and may be measuring similar things.
Overall, with the help of Prof. Pizzorno, I ran linear regression analyses on both data metrics to see if there was a statistically significant difference in the levels of entrepreneurial intentions and activity over time. Upon conducting the regressions through Tableau, both analyses resulted in p-values less than 0.0001. This means that for the years that Start-Up Chile existed in Chile, the average level of entrepreneurial activity and intentions was statistically different from levels prior to 2010. The earlier visualizations showed that there was definitiely a positive trend post-2010, so this regression analysis supports my overall hypothesis that the arrival of Start-Up Chile resutled in peer effects that increased entrepreneurial activity and intentions in the country.
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