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on Entrepreneurship |
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Issue of 2014‒02‒08
eight papers chosen by Marcus Dejardin University of Namur and Universite' Catholique de Louvain |
| By: | Daron Acemoglu (Department of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology); Ufuk Akcigit (Department of Economic, University of Pennsylvania); Murat Alp Celik (Department of Economic, University of Pennsylvania) |
| Abstract: | This paper argues that openness to new, unconventional and disruptive ideas has a .first-order impact on creative innovations - innovations that break new ground in terms of knowledge creation. After presenting a motivating model focusing on the choice between incremental and radical innovation, and on how managers of different ages and human capital are sorted across different types of .firms, we provide cross-country, firm-level and patent-level evidence consistent with this pattern. Our measures of creative innovations proxy for innovation quality (average number of citations per patent) and creativity (fraction of superstar innovators, the likelihood of a very high number of citations, and generality of patents). Our main proxy for openness to disruption is manager age. This variable is based on the idea that only companies or societies open to such disruption will allow the young to rise up within the hierarchy. Using this proxy at the country, .firm or patent level, we present robust evidence that openness to disruption is associated with more creative innovations. |
| Keywords: | corporate culture, creative destruction, creativity, economic growth, entrepreneurship, individualism, innovation, openness to disruption |
| JEL: | O40 O43 O33 P10 P16 Z1 |
| Date: | 2014–02–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pen:papers:14-004&r=ent |
| By: | Bengtsson, Ola (Department of Economics, Lund University); Ekeblom, Daniel (Department of Economics, Lund University) |
| Abstract: | Existing empirical evidence suggest that entrepreneurs are optimists, a finding researchers often interpret as evidence of a behavioral bias in entrepreneurial decision-making. We revisit this claim by analyzing an unusually large survey dataset (180,814 responses) that allows us to create a good measure of entrepreneurial optimism. Our measure is based on the individual’s beliefs about nationwide future economic conditions. These beliefs form a good measure of optimism because they, unlike an individual’s beliefs about her own future economic conditions, are completely uncorrelated with the individual’s own life or work situation (which is not optimism). Our data highlight the importance of measuring optimism correctly. About half of the survey respondents differ in their beliefs about nationwide and own conditions. In addition to its conceptual and empirical relevance, our measure of optimism makes it possible to relate an individual’s beliefs to actual outcomes. We can thereby test, in a novel way, whether entrepreneurial optimism is a behavioral bias or not. We first show that entrepreneurs have more favorable beliefs about nationwide conditions. We then show that these entrepreneurs’ beliefs are relatively good predictors of the future. We conclude from these two findings that entrepreneurs are less biased towards optimism than non-entrepreneurs are biased towards pessimism. Additional evidence pertaining to education, which arguably correlates positively with rational decision-making, supports this conclusion. We show that entrepreneurs are more educated and their beliefs about the future are more similar to educated peoples’ beliefs. In summary, our paper documents that entrepreneurial optimism is an important real-world phenomenon, yet, it may not be a behavioral bias that gives rise to irrational decision-making. |
| Keywords: | Entrepreneurship; forecast; optimism; survey data |
| JEL: | C83 D84 E27 L26 |
| Date: | 2014–01–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:lunewp:2014_001&r=ent |
| By: | Fairlie, Robert |
| Abstract: | Estimates from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) indicate that African-American men are one-third as likely to be self-employed as white men. The large discrepancy is due to a black transition rate into self-employment that is approximately one half the white rate and a black transition rate out of self-employment that is twice the white rate. Using a new variation of the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition technique, I find that racial differences in asset levels and probabilities of having self-employed fathers explain a large part of the black/white gap in the entry rate, but almost none of the gap in the exit rate. |
| Keywords: | Business, Social and Behavioral Sciences, entrepreneurship; inequality, race, minorities, business ownership, labor |
| Date: | 2014–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:ucscec:qt49c4n0fg&r=ent |
| By: | Shimizu, Hiroshi; Wakutsu, Naohiko |
| Abstract: | By exploring the patterns of laser-diode technological development in the U.S. and Japan and theoretically examining market conditions and institutions that promote entrepreneurial spin-outs from a parental company, this study reveals how the existence and absence of entrepreneurial spin-out influence the ways in which technological trajectories emerge. It shows that vibrant entrepreneurial spin-out could hinder technological development, since the cumulative effects of incremental innovations on the technological trajectories could vanish if many firms spun out to target untapped sub-markets. |
| Keywords: | Innovation, Entrepreneurial Spin-Outs, Technological Trajectory, R&D Competition, Sub-markets, General Purpose Technology |
| Date: | 2014–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hit:iirwps:13-21&r=ent |
| By: | Pokrovsky Dmitry; Behrens Kristian; Zhelobodko Evgeny |
| Abstract: | We develop a monopolistic competition model with two sectors and heterogeneousagents who self-select into entrepreneurship, depending on entrepreneurial ability. Theeffect of market size on the equilibrium share of entrepreneurs crucially hinges on propertiesof the lower-tier utility function for differentiated varieties – its elasticity of substitutionand its Arrow-Pratt index of relative risk aversion. We show that the share of entrepreneurs,and the cutoff for self-selection into entrepreneurship, can increase or decrease with marketsize. The properties of the underlying ability distribution largely determine how incomeinequality changes with market size. |
| JEL: | D43 L11 L13 L26 |
| Date: | 2014–01–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eer:wpalle:14/01e&r=ent |
| By: | Filippin, A.; Crosetto, P. |
| Abstract: | This paper reconsiders the wide agreement that females are more risk averse than males providing a leap forward in its understanding. Thoroughly surveying the literature we first find that gender differences are less ubiquitous than usually depicted. Gathering the microdata of an even larger sample of Holt and Laury replications we boost the statistical power of the test and we show that the magnitude of gender differences, although significant, is economically unimportant. We conclude that gender differences systematically correlate with the features of the elicitation method used and in particular the availability of a safe option and fixed probabilities. |
| Keywords: | GENDER;RISK;SURVEY |
| JEL: | C81 C91 D81 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gbl:wpaper:2014-01&r=ent |
| By: | Covi, Giovanni |
| Abstract: | The paper aims at investigating the possible trajectories of regional clusters (industrial districts or local systems) in order to depict feasible strategies to cope with globalization. First, same relevant stylized facts on the new structure of global market are presented in order to illustrate the new competitive framework the SME must face. Second, the concept of ‘complete productive process’ is introduced to characterize the special setting is necessary for the survival of the regional systems of SME. Said briefly, a local cluster needs to co-produce values, capabilities, institutions: its very identity. Since local systems are essentially ‘cognitive systems’, they need to go global not as single firm but as a system. To accomplish this difficult task they must resort to a collective and cooperative behaviour. The paper tries to fill this gap introducing the concept of ‘Collective Local Entrepreneurship’, a reference point, a device to whom anchor the strategic pragmatism necessary to regional clusters to cope with globalization. The renewal of the local ‘ecosystems’ within the international networks (at all different levels) appears to be a general objective. A strong public-private partnership emerges as a strategic commitment. In this perspective the paper tries to capture, as a conclusion, the potential dynamics of the four evolutionary trajectories, which the regional clusters are called upon to deal with. |
| Keywords: | Industrial clusters; innovation; knowledge; industrial policy; entrepreneurship. |
| JEL: | L22 L26 O25 O31 |
| Date: | 2014–01–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:53334&r=ent |
| By: | Diaz-Mayans, M.Angeles; Sánchez, Rosario/R |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses the relationship between exports, innovative activities and size and their effect over firms’ technical efficiency and then over their productivity. The analysis takes, also, into account other variables that could affect productivity as industrial sector, or firms’ financial conditions. We use a micro panel data set of Spanish manufacturing firms, during the period 2004–2009, to simultaneously estimate a stochastic frontier production function and the inefficiency determinants. The data source is published in the Spanish Industrial Survey on Business Strategies (Encuesta sobre Estrategias Empresariales, ESEE), collected by Fundación SEPI. Our results show that exporting firms are more efficient than non-exporting firms; and that small and medium-sized firms’ tent to be more efficient when they focus on international markets. |
| Keywords: | exports, firms, technical efficiency, productivity, innovative activities, R&D expenditures |
| JEL: | F14 L25 L60 |
| Date: | 2014–01–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:53230&r=ent |