Entrepreneurship and Economic Development: An Introduction

The intersection of the fields of entrepreneurship and development economics is a challenging and potentially rewarding area of research for social scientists, with important implications for policy-makers, donors, development agencies as well as business owners and managers. It is, however, an area that has been traditionally neglected (Audretsch et al. 2007; Bruton et al. 2008; Naudé 2010). Despite some early contributions, most notably by Leibenstein (1968) and Leff (1979), it was not until almost 40 years later that scholars in economics again started to take notice of the intersection of entrepreneurship and development economics (e.g. Acs et al. 2008a, 2008b; Hausmann and Rodrik 2003; Hwang and Powell 2005; Klapper et al. 2007; Phan et al. 2008). Interest was reignited by the improved availability of relevant cross-country data, by the resurgence of entrepreneurship after the fall of communism and the gradual reforms initiated by China since the late 1970s, by the emerging recognition of the role of institutions in both fields, and by the increasing emphasis on private sector development by donors and international development agencies.