Abstract: The scale expansion of entrepreneurship does not necessarily bring economic growth, which has become a realistic contradiction to be solved urgently in the process of promoting innovation and entrepreneurship in China. Whether the structural reform can reveal the puzzle of economic growth promoted by the entrepreneurship and realize economic growth promotion by increasing the quality of entrepreneurs are the important issues in promoting the high-quality development at present. On the basis of dividing entrepreneurship into opportunity and necessity-pushed entrepreneurship, this paper conducts an empirical study with the data from 92 countries from 2001 to 2016. The findings show that, in the long term, the opportunity entrepreneurship can promote economic growth, while the necessity-pushed entrepreneurship has an inhibition effect on economic growth. The structural reform can stimulate the opportunity entrepreneurship, and at the same time restrain the necessity-pushed entrepreneurship; especially at the growth and transition stage, trade reform, finance reform and ownership reform are important paths to promote the opportunity entrepreneurship, while the structural reform can achieve economic growth by influencing the opportunity entrepreneurship. Therefore, stimulating and protecting the opportunity entrepreneurship through structural reform will be an important way to improve the quality of entrepreneurs and achieve sustained economic growth in China.

Key words: structural reform, opportunity entrepreneurship, necessity-pushed entrepreneurship, economic growth