Using institutional economic theory as our guiding framework, we develop a model to describe how populist discourse by a nation’s political leader influences entrepreneurship. We hypothesize that populist discourse reduces entrepreneurship by creating regime uncertainty concerning the future stability of the institutional environment, resulting in entrepreneurs anticipating higher future transaction costs. Our model highlights two important factors that moderate the relationship. First is the strength of political checks and balances, which we hypothesize weakens the negative relationship between populist discourse and entrepreneurship by providing entrepreneurs with greater confidence that the actions of a populist will be constrained. Second, the political ideology of the leader moderates the relationship between populist discourse and entrepreneurship. The anti-capitalistic rhetoric of left-wing populism will create greater regime uncertainty than right-wing populism, which is often accompanied by rhetoric critical of free trade and foreigners, but also supportive of business interests. The effect of centrist populism, which is often accompanied by a mix of contradictory and often moderate ideas that make it difficult to discern future transaction costs, will have a weaker negative effect on entrepreneurship than either left-wing or right-wing populism. We empirically test our model using a multi-level design and a dataset comprised of more than 780,000 individuals in 33 countries over the period 2002–2016. Our analysis largely supports our theory regarding the moderating role of ideology. However, surprisingly, our findings suggest that the negative effect of populism on entrepreneurship is greater in nations with stronger checks and balances.

以制度经济理论为指导框架，我们开发了一个模型来描述一个国家的政治领导人的民粹主义话语如何影响创业。我们假设民粹主义话语通过创造有关制度环境未来稳定性的政权不确定性来减少企业家精神，从而导致企业家预期更高的未来交易成本。我们的模型强调了调节这种关系的两个重要因素。首先是政治制衡的力量，我们假设这会削弱民粹主义话语与企业家精神之间的负面关系，让企业家更有信心相信民粹主义者的行动会受到限制。第二，领导人的政治意识形态调节了民粹主义话语与企业家精神之间的关系。左翼民粹主义的反资本主义言论会比右翼民粹主义造成更大的政权不确定性，右翼民粹主义往往伴随着批评自由贸易和外国人的言论，但也支持商业利益。与左翼或右翼民粹主义相比，中间派民粹主义的影响通常伴随着相互矛盾且通常温和的想法，这些想法使得难以辨别未来的交易成本，对创业的负面影响要弱一些。我们使用多层次设计和由 2002-2016 年期间 33 个国家的 780,000 多人组成的数据集对我们的模型进行了实证测试。我们的分析在很大程度上支持了我们关于意识形态调节作用的理论。然而，令人惊讶的是，我们的研究结果表明，民粹主义对创业的负面影响在制衡更强的国家中更大。