Government Incentives For Innovation And Entrepreneurship

This book examines the role of government fiscal and non-fiscal incentives in spurring innovation and entrepreneurship in developed and developing economies. It explores and examines the role of government programs in different stages of firm growth pre-startup, startup, and scale-up. By developing a theoretical framework and reviewing international evidence, the book identifies the best combination of government incentives to stimulate innovation and entrepreneurship, and provides concrete policy recommendations for decision-makers. Some of the issues tackled in this book include national innovation policy, innovation support programs, effectiveness of the support, challenges associated with the programs, risk-sharing and partnerships for innovation. This book is of interest to academics, students, practitioners, policymakers, governmental and non-governmental organizations as well as other stakeholders who wants to be informed about the challenges, progress and current trend in stimulating innovation and entrepreneurship.

Government acts as entrepreneur when its involvement in market activities is both innovative and characterized by entrepreneurial risk. Thinking of government as entrepreneur is a unique lens through which the authors of this book examine a specific subset of U.S. government policy actions. As such, their viewpoint underscores the purposeful intent of government, its ability to act in new and innovative ways, and its willingness to undertake policy actions that have uncertain outcomes. Viewing particular policy actions through an entrepreneurial lens is useful in two broad dimensions. First, it underscores the forward looking nature of policy makers as well as the need to evaluate the social outputs and outcomes of their behavior in terms of broad spillover impacts. Second, government acting as entrepreneur parallels in concept similar activities that occur in the private sector. Government as Entrepreneur is the first broad effort to emphasize the entrepreneurial aspects of governments. It is also the first systematic treatment of U.S. innovation policies to promote the formation of strategic research partnerships. It will foster a new perspective on the role of government and how incentives for government to act entrepreneurially might be institutionalized; it will serve as a vehicle for policy makers and scholars to think about the entrepreneurial actors in an economy, in a new way.

A calculation of the social returns to innovation /Benjamin F. Jones and Lawrence H. Summers --Innovation and human capital policy /John Van Reenen --Immigration policy levers for US innovation and start-ups /Sari Pekkala Kerr and William R. Kerr --Scientific grant funding /Pierre Azoulay and Danielle Li --Tax policy for innovation /Bronwyn H. Hall --Taxation and innovation: what do we know? /Ufuk Akcigit and Stefanie Stantcheva --Government incentives for entrepreneurship /Josh Lerner.

In the dozen years since the Global Financial Crisis, there has been a surge of interest on the part of governments in promoting entrepreneurial activity, largely by providing financing. This essay explores these policies, focusing on financial incentives to entrepreneurs and the intermediaries who fund them. The motivation for these efforts is clear: the well-documented relationships between economic growth, innovation, entrepreneurship and venture capital. Yet despite good intentions, many of these public initiatives have ended in disappointment. I argue that these failures have not simply been a matter of bad luck. Instead, the unfortunate outcomes have reflected the fundamental structural issues that make it difficult for governments to launch sustained successful efforts to promote entrepreneurship over sustained periods. I highlight several critical challenges, and outline two principles that might render these efforts more effective.

Innovation underpins competitiveness, is crucial to addressing societal challenges, and its support has become a major public policy goal. But what really works in innovation policy, and why? This Handbook, compiled by leading experts in the field, is the first comprehensive guide to understanding the logic and effects of innovation polices. The Handbook develops a conceptualisation and typology of innovation policies, presents meta-evaluations for 16 key innovation policy instruments and analyses evidence on policy-mix. For each policy instrument, underlying rationales and examples are presented, along with a critical analysis of the available impact evidence. Providing access to primary sources of impact analysis, the book offers an insightful assessment of innovation policy practice and its evaluation.

Research and development (R and D) leads to innovation, and innovation leads to technological change. Technological change, in turn, is the primary driver of economic growth. Public/private partnerships -- cooperative relationships among industry, government, and/or universities -- leverage the efficiency of R and D and are thus a critical aspect of a nation’s innovation system. This text is intended for upper-level undergraduate and MBA courses such as Economics and Technology, Economics of Innovation, and Economics of Science and Technology, among others. The first chapter introduces the concept of public/private research partnerships along with other concepts fundamental to an understanding of innovation and technology policy. The framework chapters (2-5) set forth an argument for the public’s role – government’s role – in innovation in general and in public/private partnership in particular. The remaining chapters (6-14) describe a number of public/private partnerships and, to the extent possible, evaluate their social impact.

Science and technology have long been regarded as important determinants of economic growth. Edwin Mansfield (1971, pp. 1- 2), a pioneer in the economics of technological change, noted: Technological change is an important, if not the most important, factor responsible for economic growth . . . without question, [it] is one of the most important determinants of the shape and evolution of the American economy. Science and technology are even more important in the "new economy," with its greater emphasis on the role of intellectual property and knowledge transfer. Therefore, it is unfortunate that most individuals rarely have the opportunity to explore the economic implications of science and technology. As a result, the antecedents and consequences of technological change are poorly understood by many in the general public. This lack of understanding is reflected in a recent survey conducted by the National Science Board (2000), summarized in Science & Engineering Indicators. ' As shown in Table 1. 1, the findings of the survey indicated that many Americans, despite a high level of interests in such matters, are not as well-informed about technological issues as they are about other policy issues. As shown in the table, individuals self assess, based on a scale from 1 to 100, their interest in science and technology policy issues as being relatively high, yet they self assess their knowledge or informedness about these issues relatively lower.

This book presents some of Zoltán J. Ács’ most important contributions since the turn of the new millennium, with a particular intellectual focus on knowledge spillover entrepreneurship. It studies the evolution of global entrepreneurship and pays attention to the role of institutions and the incentives they create for economic agents who become either productive or unproductive entrepreneurs. For productive entrepreneurs, those that create wealth for themselves and for society, the author offers a knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship as a new way to help understand the entrepreneurial ecosystem. For those that create wealth only for themselves the author develops a theory of destructive entrepreneurship that undermines the entrepreneurial ecosystem. The book also presents an explanation of the role of philanthropy in reconstituting wealth to complete the circuits of capital in the theory of capitalist development. Finally, the author examines several public policy issues including immigration and technology transfer. This volume will be required reading for students and scholars of entrepreneurship, economics and public policy.