Testing Baumol: Institutional quality and the productivity of entrepreneurship

Baumol's [Baumol, W.J., 1990. Entrepreneurship: productive, unproductive and destructive. Journal of Political Economy 98 (5), 893–921] theory of productive and unproductive entrepreneurship is a significant recent contribution to the economics of entrepreneurship literature. He hypothesizes that entrepreneurial individuals channel their effort in different directions depending on the quality of prevailing economic, political, and legal institutions. This institutional structure determines the relative reward to investing entrepreneurial energies into productive market activities versus unproductive political and legal activities (e.g., lobbying and lawsuits). Good institutions channel effort into productive entrepreneurship, sustaining higher rates of economic growth. I test and confirm Baumol's theory, and discuss its significance to the literature, economic prosperity, and policy reform.     

Entrepreneurship,economic growth,and innovation: Are feedback effects at work?

This study aims to analyze the relationships between entrepreneurship, innovation and economic growth, and to show the feedback effects in these relationships. A Schumpeterian approach considering three equations linking GDP, innovation, and entrepreneurship facilitates this analysis. This paper presents empirical analysis of entrepreneurial activity in 13 developed countries. Panel data with fixed effects methodology, for the period 2002 to 2007, provides the means to estimate the equations. The analysis shows that several factors have positive impacts on innovation and entrepreneurship, including monetary policy and social climate. Additionally, a feedback effect is at work: economic activity promotes entrepreneurship and innovation activities, and the latter enhances economic activity. Therefore, policymakers must consider this effect when designing economic policies.     

The Influences of Economic and Technology Policy on the Dynamics of New Firm Formation

This study attempts to reveal how macroeconomic and technology policies that encompass the opportunity and individual drivers of entrepreneurship explain the dynamics of new firm formation in a country. To do so we rely on the Schumpeterian, industrial organization, and labor economics traditions of entrepreneurship, and performed an exploratory test with longitudinal U.S. data from 1968 to 1993. The results of this study suggest that R&D investments, patents, economic concentration, pro-competition policy, and labor mobility are important areas in which government policy can influence the intensity of new firm formation.     

Nascent Entrepreneurship and the Level of Economic Development

Based upon two strands of literature, this paper hypothesizes a U-shaped relationship between a country’s rate of entrepreneurial dynamics and its level of economic development. This would imply a different scope for entrepreneurship policy across subsequent stages of development. Regressing global entrepreneurship (GEM) 2002 data for nascent entrepreneurship in 36 countries on the level of economic development as measured either by per capita income or by an index for innovative capacity, we find support for a U-shaped relationship. The results suggest that a ‘natural rate’ of nascent entrepreneurship is to some extent governed by ‘laws’ related to the level of economic development. For the most advanced nations, improving incentive structures for business start-ups and promoting the commercial exploitation of scientific findings offer the most promising approach for public policy. Developing nations, however, may be better off pursuing the exploitation of scale economies, fostering foreign direct investment and promoting management education. An erratum to this article is available at .     

Industrial Policy in the United States

Does US government policy purposefully benefit particular industries or is industrial policy absent in the USA? Based on a review of recent US policies this paper argues that the USA applies many policies with an industry-specific impact. But these policies do not differ significantly from those in other countries and the process in which US industrial policies emerge severely limits their consistency. What differentiates the USA is a microeconomic business environment that enables a high degree of regional specialization, benefits especially knowledge-driven industries, and raises the impact of innovation and entrepreneurship policies.     

关于对大学生培养公益创业概念的研究

目前,大学生公益创业面临的问题是教育不足,需要社会的支持和信任,需要相关的政策支持及媒体正能量的宣传。高校应开展大学生公益创业概念的教育,使大学生对公益创业有一个比较清晰的认识,引导大学生选择公益创业的方向。同时,加大政府及社会组织给予大学生公益创业的支持,以增强大学生救死扶伤的信念,培养大学生良好阳光的心性,提高大学生公益创业的积极性。     

江西实施全民创业教育的政府对策

为了推动全民创业的发展战略，搞好全民创业教育，江西实施了全民创业教育的对策。论述了强化全民的创业教育意识、健全创业教育的组织、完善创业教育的内容、加强创业教育师资的培训及建设全民创业教育的基地等相关内容。     

To formalize or not to formalize: Entrepreneurship and pro-market institutions

In this paper, we examine the effects of pro-market institutions on both formal and informal entrepreneurship. While formal entrepreneurship has long been studied in economic literature, informal entrepreneurship has been less frequently discussed. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is not only to examine the impact of pro-market institutions, but also to foster a better understanding of, and introduce a method to measure, informal entrepreneurship. For the purpose of this paper, pro-market institutions are broken into their two main components: economic liberalization and governance levels. The arguments posit that economic liberalization positively impacts both formal and informal entrepreneurship while governance levels have a positive impact on formal entrepreneurship but a negative effect on informal entrepreneurship. Furthermore, governance levels reduce informal entrepreneurship to a greater extent than they increase formal entrepreneurship, resulting in a net reduction in entrepreneurial activity. The analyses of a panel covering 51 countries from 2002–2009 provide robust support for these arguments.     

Towards a theory of entrepreneurial teams

This article examines the role of entrepreneurial teams in processes of entrepreneurial discovery. It addresses two main questions. The first investigates the implications of economic theory for the possibility of team entrepreneurship. Because leading economic theories focus almost exclusively upon individual decision-makers, we propose a broader notion of entrepreneurship that includes enterprising teams as well as individuals. We define entrepreneurship as a profit-seeking problem-solving process that takes place under conditions of structural uncertainty.The second question examines the conditions that are conducive to joint entrepreneurial action and the formation of entrepreneurial teams. We suggest that bounded structural uncertainty and perceived strong interdependence arising from common interest can jointly “prime” team entrepreneurship.     

中国的经济结构转型缘何难以实现——基于公共投资、经济增长与结构转型关系视角的研究

从中国的实践看,积极财政政策的实施似乎总与结构失衡加剧如影随形,两者之间的关系容易让人做出"由此及彼"的判断,认为大规模的公共投资建设在维持经济快速增长的同时,也加剧了结构失衡,威胁着经济增长的长期性、持续性。基于中国实践的研究表明,在中国特有分权体制下,地方政府内在的投资冲动,确实强化了经济结构的失衡,但公共投资作为政策工具本身与结构转型之间并无必然联系。在控制财政分权等体制性因素的条件下,公共投资与经济总量的过快增长均对结构转型产生显著的抑制作用,因此维持适度的经济增长和投资增速有利于结构转型的实现。     

Entrepreneurship education in the nineties

Bringing entrepreneurship education into the community support infrastructure poses one of the more important economic development issue for the 1990s. Aspart of the new strategy for job creation, entrepreneurship education holds promise as an integral component in a community's venture support system along with incubators, innovation centers, technology transfer offices, science parks, and venture capital operations. Since new venture success is foremost a function of entrepreneurial knowledge and know-how, entrepreneurship education may be the most promising of these economic development mechanisms. Unfortunately, it may be the most difficult to implement.Generally the extent and nature of education required by modern aspiring entrepreneurs is not well understood. Many would see entrepreneurship education as strictly an add-on to current education in management or engineering. Such is the option of minimal use. The real promise or entrepreneurship education will be realized when it is strategically organized for economic development and job creation. This article traces the recent history of entrepreneurship education before proceeding to deal with a number of questions facing those who would use entrepreneurship education as part of a modern economic development strategy:

1. 1.1. Why is entrepreneurship education important?
2. 2.2. How should it be distinguished from related programs?
3. 3.3. How will success be measured?
4. 4.4. Who will be the students?
5. 5.5. How will the subject be taught?
6. 6.6. What will be the curriculum?
7. 7.7. Who will be the teachers?

     

出口退税新机制的经济效应分析——以浙江省出口企业为例

我国自2004年实行的出口退税新机制,目的之一在于增强我国出口企业的国际竞争力,促进国家产业结构升级,减轻国家财税负担。两年多来的实践证明,出口退税新机制对产业调整起到了良好的作用,但并未使我国出口经济走出“斯蒂格利茨怪圈”。     

Gender factors and female entrepreneurship: International evidence and policy implications

Nowadays, the transformations taking place in female entrepreneurship at the national and international levels and the importance of such entrepreneurship for economic growth and poverty alleviation underscore the need for more global and diversified analysis of female entrepreneurial activities. The literature however regarding international comparisons of female entrepreneurship practices remains limited and becomes even more limited when exploring such practices beyond the developed countries context. To this end, this paper examined the impact of five gender-related variables on the extent of female entrepreneurial activities in 44 developed and developing countries. Among its five focused variables, the paper found female education, extent of female economic activities, female earnings ratio, and fertility rate to be significant in all estimations with two different dependent variables representing female entrepreneurial activities. The remaining focus variable related to gender empowerment was found to be significant with one of the two dependent variables. Among its contributions, the paper explored gender entrepreneurship from an international perspective and extended the analysis of the topic beyond the main stream Anglo-Saxon context. It also highlighted the variations in results with regards to developed and developing countries environment. Understanding factors that could influence the development of female entrepreneurial activities and exploring their potential variability across stages of economic development could also be useful for policy makers exploring effective incentive structure to promote gender entrepreneurship in their respective countries.     

The interplay of entrepreneurship education and national cultures in entrepreneurial activity: a social cognitive perspective

Does entrepreneurship education result in entrepreneurial activities across national cultures? For the most part, prior research has examined the relationship between entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial activity, using country-specific samples. However, many of these results are inconsistent. One reason for such inconsistent results may be a limitation of country-specific samples, given that they are valid in a domestic context but not generalizable. Our study addresses this limitation by using a cross-national sample of 24,457 respondents from 38 countries to examine the role of diverse national cultures. Building on the social cognitive theory, our results show that entrepreneurship education is more seminal for entrepreneurial activities that take place in countries with greater individualism, less uncertainty avoidance, and a high level of masculinity. This research presents a more complete picture of how entrepreneurship education may affect international entrepreneurship contingent upon national culture, and has implications for researchers, educators, and policy makers.     

贸易开放度、经济增长与劳动密集型产业结构调整

本文通过构建联立方程模型对贸易开放度、劳动密集型产业结构和经济增长之间的统计关系进行实证,同时利用VAR模型检验三者之间的相互作用。研究结果表明:经济增长不利于劳动密集型产业的发展,同时劳动密集型产业的发展也不利于经济增长;但贸易开放促进经济增长的同时阻碍了劳动密集型产业的发展。本文研究的政策含义是,当前政府应该优化劳动密集型产业结构,促进要素资源的合理配置;政府外贸政策的重心应该放在改变出口产业结构,使之朝着有利于转变经济增长方式的方向转变。     

Entrepreneurship capital and its impact on knowledge diffusion and economic performance

In this paper, we develop two hypotheses: First, regional innovation efforts have a positive impact on regional knowledge based entrepreneurial activity. Second, knowledge based entrepreneurship positively affects regional economic performance. We test these hypotheses using county level data from West Germany, employing a structural equation model to analyze the relationships between latent variables. Our empirical analysis provides evidence supporting both hypotheses. In particular, our results suggest that innovation efforts have an indirect effect on economic performance via entrepreneurship. This indirect effect is neglected in existing empirical studies focusing on the direct effect of innovation on economic performance.     

Do entrepreneurship programmes raise entrepreneurial intention of science and engineering students? The effect of learning,inspiration and resources

Drawing on the theory of planned behaviour, this study tests the effect of entrepreneurship programmes on the entrepreneurial attitudes and intentions of science and engineering students. This is necessary in order to confirm (or disconfirm) conventional wisdom that entrepreneurship education increases the intention to start a business. The results show that the programmes raise some attitudes and the overall entrepreneurial intention and that inspiration (a construct with an emotional element) is the programmes' most influential benefit. The findings contribute to the theories of planned behaviour and education and have wider implications for a theory of entrepreneurial emotions and also for the practice of teaching entrepreneurship.     

宏观经济政策反思及其转型的框架设计

前几年实行的财政政策中,企业税费负担增长过快抑制投资需求与增发国债扩大投资需求相互抵消;发行国债的增速在下降,还本付息比例在上升,国债发行扩大投资的边际效用在递减;国债主要投资于短期增加就业和拉动增长的基础项目上,其增长和就业连续性较弱.而货币政策方面,降低利率和存款准备金率以及公开市场业务操作等总量性的政策,对扩大贷款,特别是对推动增长和增加就业最有用的中小企业的放款,几乎没有作用.贷存比和对中小企业的贷款持续下降和相对减少.因此,需要从行政取向国债为主的财政政策和总量性的货币政策,转向市场取向刺激社会投资的财政政策和体制及结构性的货币政策.减少税费负担,实行投资税收抵扣制,对积极为中小企业贷款的银行给予税收优惠;大力发展社会资本的中小银行,同时鼓励民间中小企业信贷担保公司的发展,放宽资产抵押、担保和信用贷款的一些政策,调整银行呆坏账准备金的使用结构,为中小企业贷款服务.如果财政政策和货币政策转型,则在未来的三四年中,失业率可以从目前的年10%-11%下降到5%-6%,国内消费增长率从目前的8.5%左右提高到年12%-13%,消费物价走出持续低迷,并且GDP每年以8%的速度再增长三到四年.     

中国出口鼓励贸易政策的经济效率问题

本文首次创立了评估出口鼓励贸易政策经济效率的指标体系,并通过这些指标体系来分析中国出口鼓励贸易政策的经济效率.作者借鉴J.丁伯根提出的定量经济政策工具的效率系数理论,并将该理论延伸到出口鼓励贸易政策中,首次提出了出口鼓励贸易政策工具的效率系数,并对出口退税、出口补贴和出口信贷3项主要的出口鼓励贸易政策的效率系数进行了实证检验,最后提出当前出口鼓励贸易政策向高效率方向调整的政策建议.     

Industrial Policy: A Dying Breed or A Re-emerging Phoenix

Real world industrial policy is often poorly designed and always heavily opposed. Good intentions are overshadowed by bad outcomes. However, no commonly accepted definition exists; concepts differ across nations, regions, stage of development and over time. After switching from the sectoral to the horizontal approach—and facing never ending problems with targeting, large projects and specific technologies—industrial policy seemed to phase out at the end of the last century. Recently, interest has re-emerged, due to globalisation, outsourcing, low growth and high unemployment (specifically in Europe). We present evidence on past strategies and the performances of various concepts. We describe the new “matrix approach to industrial policy” developed by the European Commission. Finally, we venture to define elements of a “Systemic Industrial Policy”. This new type of industrial policy differs decisively from policies of the past, and has been receiving an impetus from the EU “Lisbon Strategy”, as well as from the rise of China and the new EU member countries. It is the complementary policy to globalisation, increasing its benefits and empowering and retraining potential losers. Systemic Industrial Policy supports basic education, training and entrepreneurship in developing countries, promotes FDI and exports in catching-up economies and merges with innovation strategies, cluster policy and dynamic competitiveness in high income countries. It goes beyond combating market failures, as it builds on economic laws, comparative and competitive advantages and changing specialisation patterns. It acknowledges limited knowledge of policy makers, mutual learning and co-operation between firms, institutions and government.