Uncertainty is perceived as the means of removing the obstacles to growth through the activation of Knightian entrepreneurship. A dynamic stochastic model of continuous-time growth is proposed and empirically tested, including equilibrating and creative entrepreneurial activity. We find that uncertainty affects economic growth and the rate of return, and causes structural changes in portfolio s...

This paper analyzes a model in which the risk associated with entrepreneurial activity implies that the amount of such activity is procyclical and results in both amplification and intertemporal propagation of productivity shocks. In the model risk averse agents choose between a riskless project and a risky project with higher expected return (‘the entrepreneurial activity’). Agents who choose ...

The World Bank Group Entrepreneurship Survey measures entrepreneurial activity around the world. The database includes cross-country, time-series data on the number of total and newly registered businesses for 84 countries. This paper finds significant relationships between entrepreneurial activity and indicators of economic and financial development and growth, the quality of the legal and reg...

Entrepreneurship is widely recognized as a key factor in economic growth [Leibenstein, 1968]. Historical studies of commercialization a d industrialization suggest that the speed of "take off' is higher when entrepreneurs in related lines of activity work well together [Grassby, 1995]. In the aggregate, ntrepreneurs may work better as a cooperative network than as a collection of competitive in...

This paper explores the productivity and income distribution effects of asymmetric information and risk preferences on the credit market. A model of contract design in the presence of moral hazard is developed in which competitive, risk neutral lenders offer contracts to risk averse agents who hold the option to invest capital and labor time in an entrepreneurial activity. The model gives rise ...

Today, innovation networks are economically and technologically accessible [VBE04]; however, managers and members of such organizations notice that success and performance are not automatically given. More to this, practitioners point out that the collaboration processes are the actual challenge in the management of a networked organization. This paper summarizes the results of a research proje...

We consider the problem of motivating privately informed managers to engage in entrepreneurial activity to improve the quality of the firm’s investment opportunities. The firm’s investment and compensation policy must balance the manager’s incentives to provide entrepreneurial effort and to report her private information truthfully. The optimal policy is to underinvest (compared to first-best) ...