Entrepreneurship and institutions: Does the relationship exist at the regional level in Russia?

Despite many governmental support programs, the entrepreneurship development in Russia is still very uneven. In this article we analyze numerous studies on entrepreneurship and find out that the institutional background in general and in certain regions is very important for the development of entrepreneurship. The risks of doing business, the complexity and duration of administrative procedures, access to capital, regulation and informal community norms are of extreme importance. The aim of this paper is to identify regional institutional factors for the development of small enterprises in Russia. With the help of the proposed econometric model we show that high investment risks and large number of economic crimes are significant deterrents for the entrepreneurial activity in Russia. The banking services' availability and the proximity of large markets, combined with the human capital concentration, contribute to the entrepreneurship development. The impact of state support turned out to be not significant. We formulate some policy advice for entrepreneurship support in Russia.