The academic debate in migrant entrepreneurship has mainly focused on movements from emerging economies into developed economies. Anecdotal evidence has suggested that the highest impact is generated by migrants in/from emerging economies. To extend this academic discussion in the Latin-American context, this study investigates why migrants are more entrepreneurial than natives. By adopting the human capital and the institutional approach, we theorize that individual and environmental conditions produce selection/discrimination effects in the host labour market. Consequently, these effects influence migrants’ decision to become entrepreneurs. We tested our hypotheses using a sample of 13,368 adults between the ages of 18–64 based across the 16 Chilean regions. Our results showed that being a high-skilled migrant in a dynamic emerging economy is not a guarantee of success in the labour market, but it is a determinant of international and necessity-driven entrepreneurship. Several implications and a provocative discussion emerged from these findings.

关于移民企业家精神的学术辩论主要集中在从新兴经济体向发达经济体的转移。轶事证据表明，对新兴经济体的移民产生的影响最大。为了在拉丁美洲范围内扩展这一学术讨论，本研究调查了为什么移民比本地人更具有企业家精神。通过采用人力资本和制度方法，我们得出结论，个人和环境条件会在东道国劳动力市场上产生选择/歧视效应。因此，这些影响影响了移民成为企业家的决定。我们使用了智利16个地区的13368名18至64岁成年人的样本，检验了我们的假设。我们的结果表明，在充满活力的新兴经济体中成为高技能移民并不能保证在劳动力市场上取得成功，但这是国际和由需求驱动的企业家精神的决定因素。这些发现引起了一些启示和挑衅性的讨论。