Entrepreneurship and finger length

Entrepreneurship is the engine of growth, thus is it is important to understand what makes entrepreneurs tick and how to identify potential entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship courses in BS (business schools) are often dismissed as BS (...), but they have the merit to explain the ropes of setting up a business, thus lowering the hurdle. Still not everyone has what it takes.

Luigi Guiso and Aldo Rustichini make the rather surprising discovery that people with lower second to fourth finger length ratio exhibit stronger entrepreneurial skills. There is actually some theory behind this correlation. Indeed, this finger length ratio is associated with prenatal testosterone. Thus it appears that biology has something to do with entrepreneurship and ultimately growth. Does this mean we should now adopt a policy injecting fetuses with testosterone to bolster the nation's growth rate? No, because these entrepreneurs also seem to be over-confident, tend to build empires and thus sub-optimal firm size. But I wonder when bankers will start measuring their clients' hands.

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