This paper explores the relationship between knowledge creation, entrepreneurship, and economic growth in the United States over the last 150 years. According to the quot;new growth theory,quot; investments in knowledge and human capital generate economic growth via spillovers of knowledge. But...

What differentiates American capitalism from all other forms of industrial capitalism is a historical focus on both the creation of wealth (entrepreneurship) and the reconstitution of wealth (philanthropy). Philanthropy has been part of the implicit American social contract that continuously...