Although it is admittedly difficult to theorize and make predictions on the innovative behavior and supply of entrepreneurs, William Baumol shows that by usually failing to incorporate entrepreneurship in their growth models, economists have omitted what can be a key contributor to economic growth. In this book Baumol seeks to bring entrepreneurship back into the body of mainstream economic theory. In particular, he studies the effect of the allocation of entrepreneurs between productive and unproductive activities on an economy's performance.Departing from the orthodox view that imitation retards technical progress by reducing the reward to innovation, Baumol asserts that entrepreneurs can spread and speed the adoption of new technology and ideas throughout a market. By persistently looking to depart from standard practices, entrepreneurs fuel change and help keep an economy from falling into a rut. Often these changes can improve efficiency, increase production, and spur growth.Baumol points out, however, that entrepreneurs do not always, or even usually, behave productively. He devotes several chapters to different types of misallocation of entrepreneurship, such as the mergers and acquisitions of the 1980s and frivolous lawsuits examples of the ways an entrepreneur will find to increase his or her share of the profits rather than produce more. Therefore, Baumol argues, it is important to the vitality of a free-enterprise society to provide incentives for making better use of entrepreneurial resources, and he suggests relevant changes in economic institutions.William J. Baumol is Professor of Economics at New York University and Director of the university's C. V. Starr Center for Applied Economics.

Entrepreneurship can, at times, seem like a veritable jungle where finding one's way can prove to be difficult. This book functions as a map locating the most important issues: those where an acceptable consensus already exists, and those that remain open to discussion. In so doing, we have presented the accounts of distinguished explorers in their own words.

Systemic Entrepreneurship focuses on creating an awareness of systemic entrepreneurship and illustrates the fact that one needs to approach entrepreneurial support activities from many different angles.

This work provides a sweeping history of enterprise in Mesopotamia and Neo-Babylon; carries the reader through the Islamic Middle East; offers insights into the entrepreneurial history of China, Japan, and colonial India; and describes the crucial role of the entrepreneur in innovation activity in the Western world.

By serving as a conduit for knowledge spillovers, entrepreneurship is the missing link between investments in new knowledge and economic growth. The knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship provides not just an explanation of why entrepreneurship has become more prevalent as the factor of knowledge has emerged as a crucial source for comparative advantage, but also why entrepreneurship plays a vital role in generating economic growth. Entrepreneurship is an important mechanism permeating the knowledge filter to facilitate the spill over of knowledge and ultimately generate economic growth.

This path-breaking Handbook analyses the foundations, social desirability, institutions and geography of innovation and entrepreneurship. Leading researchers use their outstanding expertise to investigate various aspects in the context of innovation and entrepreneurship such as growth, knowledge production and spillovers, technology transfer, the organization of the firm, industrial policy, financing, small firms and start-ups, and entrepreneurship education as well as the characteristics of the entrepreneur. There is much in this Handbook that will prove to be informative and stimulating, especially for academics and post-graduate students in economics and management. Those starting a PhD in innovation or entrepreneurship will find this book essential reading.

The entrepreneur is involved in the dance of two questions – what is needed and what is possible. The interplay of these two questions is an ongoing process and innovation varies internationally and regionally, depending on differing legal and policy systems, variations in the development of education and skill development, in social processes and in knowledge transfer. This book explores innovation and networks in entrepreneurship with an interdisciplinary approach, focusing on how old and new knowledge can be combined to produce radical innovation. These chapters combine themes of entrepreneurship, innovation and networks with a specifically European focus, highlighting the wide variations at the national, regional and business level. These variations suggest the need to break with traditional stereotypes about Southern and Northern Europe. The book takes a Schumpeterian perspective, emphasising the importance of looking at the history of entrepreneurship and innovation, paying particular attention to the neglected area of innovation in services within firms.