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IZA Discussion Paper No. 16408
August 2023
Is Productive Entrepreneurship Getting Scarcer? A Reflection on the Contemporary Relevance of Baumol's Typology

published in: W. Naudé and B. Power (eds.), Handbook of Research on Entrepreneurship and Conflict, Elgar, 2024, 18 - 44

We review Baumol's typology of productive, unproductive and destructive entrepreneurship. We argue that the typology is relevant for explaining the secular decline in business dynamics. To the existing explanations for this decline, we put forward the thesis that entrepreneurship has become less productive, due to the unintended effects of entrepreneurship policies adopted widely in Western economies. These have straight-jacketed, distracted and zombified entrepreneurship. Removing these constraints on productive entrepreneurship would require that the decline in level-two institutions, such as democracy and science, be halted and reversed.

Communications
Mark Fallak
mark.fallak@liser.lu
+352 585-855-526
World of Labour
Olga Nottmeyer
olga.nottmeyer@liser.lu
+352 585-855-501
Network Coordination
Christina Gathmann
christina.gathmann@liser.lu

The IZA@LISER Network is a global community of scholars dedicated to excellence in labor economics and related fields, now coordinated at the Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER) following its transition from Bonn.

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