An Anglo-American study into twins - both identical and fraternal - claims that upbringing and education is much less important than genetics when it comes to starting a business.

It discovered that identical twins - who share the same genes - are much more likely to start businesses than fraternal twins.

Professor Tim Spector, from the Twin Research Unit, said:

"This relatively high heritability suggests the importance of considering genetic factors to explain why some people are entrepreneurial, while others are not."

The team did not identify the specific gene responsible for entrepreneurship, but it expects follow-up research to do so.