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Entrepreneurship: A Weak Link in the Welfare State

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Entrepreneurship is largely ignored or treated in a highly simplified way in endogenous growth theory. Still, it is now widely recognized that the supply of entrepreneurial talent is likely to be important for economic growth, innovation and job creation. This study consists of an in-depth examination of how the supply of productive entrepreneurship is likely to be affected by the kind of tax and welfare arrangements that typically prevail in a mature welfare state. Sweden, allegedly the most extensive of all welfare states, is the object of the empirical analysis. It is shown how key welfare state institutions have systematically reduced economic incentives both for opportunity-based and necessity entrepreneurship. Both aggregate economic performance and data on firm growth and direct measures of entrepreneurial activity are consistent with the identified structure of payoffs. A number of measures can be implemented to strengthen entrepreneurial incentives within extensive welfare states, but the fact still remains that an entrepreneurial culture and a welfare state are very remotely related. As a result, the respective cultures are unlikely to be promoted by a similar set of institutions.

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  • Henrekson, Magnus, 2002. "Entrepreneurship: A Weak Link in the Welfare State," SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance 518, Stockholm School of Economics, revised 11 Mar 2005.
  • Handle: RePEc:hhs:hastef:0518
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Economic growth; Entrepreneurship; Innovation; Swedish model; Welfare state;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H30 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - General
    • J20 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - General
    • M13 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - New Firms; Startups
    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development

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