Existing studies of entrepreneurship focus on entrepreneurs whose individual contribution to wealth creation is typically trivial: self-employed persons. This paper investigates entrepreneurs whose individual contribution to wealth creation is enormous: billionaires. We explore the relationship...

This paper reconsiders the predominant typology pioneered by Baumol (1990) between productive, unproductive and destructive entrepreneurship. Baumol’s classificatory scheme is built around a limited concept of first-best outcomes and therefore easily fails to appreciate the true impact of...

The constraint on informal finance is commonly taken to be high costs and limited supply. But the majority of informal investors – family and friends – is often willing to supply funds at negative returns, and yet many borrowers tap family and friends only as a last resort. We explain this...

This paper introduces an experimental economy with boundedly rational agents that compete with local, and largely incommunicable industrial knowledge, in an international market environment with more or less unbounded, commercial opportunities. Predictability of outcomes at the micro level is...

We construct a model where incumbents can either acquire basic innovations from entrepreneurs, or wait and acquire developed innovations from entrepreneurial firms supported by venture capitalists. We show that venture-backed entrepreneurial firms have an incentive to overinvest in development...

Science & Technology (S&T) is high on the Chinese policy agenda but there are large uncertainties on the actual S&T development. For instance, previous studies tend to focus only on large and medium-sized enterprises (LMEs). The situation in Chinese small firms is far less explored. This paper...

This paper investigates how the entry mode of foreign direct investment (FDI) affects the affiliate R&D activities using unique data on Swedish multinational firms over a long period of time (1970 to 1998). On average, acquired affiliates are more likely to do R&D and have a higher level of R&D...

Demand for less skilled workers decreased dramatically in the US and in other developed countries over the past two decades. We argue that pervasive skill biased technological change rather than increased trade with the developing world is the principal culprit. The pervasiveness of this...

In this paper we construct a model in which entrepreneurial innovations are sold into oligopolistic industries and where adverse selection problems between entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and incumbents are present. We show that as exacerbated development by better-informed venture-backed...

Demand for less skill decreased. They argue that pervasive skill biased technological change rather than increased trade with developing world is the principal culprit.The pervasiveness of this technological change is important because:1)immediate and testable implication of technological change...