IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/entthe/v46y2022i2p368-392.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Democracy and Entrepreneurship

Author

Listed:
  • David B. Audretsch
  • Petra Moog

Abstract

Entrepreneurship has been claimed to matter and deserve priority because it has been linked to some of the most compelling economic and social issues of our time. This paper suggests that entrepreneurship is also inextricably linked to a fundamental value common among the western developed economies, democracy. Three distinct contexts are examined to link democracy to entrepreneurship, two historical and one contemporary. The first is National Socialism in Germany, which emerged by suppressing both entrepreneurship and democracy. The second is the rise of the Trusts, or dominant large corporations and concomitant decline of small business in the United States at the end of the nineteenth century. Finally, both measurement and perception suggest a decline in democracy as well as entrepreneurship in the contemporary era. These concerns are only exacerbated in the current Covid-19 crisis. The paper concludes that an important policy mandate for entrepreneurship may be to ensure the independent, decentralized and autonomous decision-making serving as a cornerstone of democracy.

Suggested Citation

  • David B. Audretsch & Petra Moog, 2022. "Democracy and Entrepreneurship," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 46(2), pages 368-392, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:entthe:v:46:y:2022:i:2:p:368-392
    DOI: 10.1177/1042258720943307
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1042258720943307
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1042258720943307?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lucia Foster & John Haltiwanger & Chad Syverson, 2008. "Reallocation, Firm Turnover, and Efficiency: Selection on Productivity or Profitability?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(1), pages 394-425, March.
    2. Ryan Decker & John Haltiwanger & Ron Jarmin & Javier Miranda, 2014. "The Role of Entrepreneurship in US Job Creation and Economic Dynamism," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 28(3), pages 3-24, Summer.
    3. Tyson, Laura d'Andrea & Petrin, Tea & Rogers, F Halsey, 1994. "Promoting Entrepreneurship in Eastern Europe," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 6(3), pages 165-184, June.
    4. Atack, Jeremy & Bateman, Fred & Margo, Robert A., 2004. "Skill Intensity and Rising Wage Dispersion in Nineteenth-Century American Manufacturing," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 64(1), pages 172-192, March.
    5. Hugo Hopenhayn & Julian Neira & Rish Singhania, 2022. "From Population Growth to Firm Demographics: Implications for Concentration, Entrepreneurship and the Labor Share," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(4), pages 1879-1914, July.
    6. Claudia Goldin & Lawrence F. Katz, 1998. "The Origins of Technology-Skill Complementarity," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(3), pages 693-732.
    7. Huang,Yasheng, 2008. "Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521898102, September.
    8. Friederike Welter & Ted Baker & Katharine Wirsching, 2019. "Three waves and counting: the rising tide of contextualization in entrepreneurship research," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 52(2), pages 319-330, February.
    9. Ralph L. Nelson, 1959. "Merger Movements in American Industry, 1895-1956," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number nels59-1.
    10. Melanie Feakins, 2004. "Commercial Bank Lending to SMEs in Poland," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 23(1), pages 51-70, August.
    11. Josh Lerner, 2012. "Boulevard of Broken Dreams:Why Public Efforts to Boost Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Have Failed--and What to Do About It," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 8984.
    12. Naudé, Wim, 2019. "The decline in entrepreneurship in the West: Is complexity ossifying the economy?," MERIT Working Papers 2019-030, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    13. Taylor, Frederick Winslow, 1911. "The Principles of Scientific Management," History of Economic Thought Books, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, number taylor1911.
    14. Ageev, Alexander I & Gratchev, Mikhail V & Hisrich, Robert D, 1995. "Entrepreneurship in the Soviet Union and Post-Socialist Russia," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 7(5), pages 365-376, October.
    15. McDermott, Gerald A & Mejstrik, Michal, 1992. "The Role of Small Firms in the Industrial Development and Transformation of Czechoslovakia," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 4(3), pages 179-200, September.
    16. Harold L. Cole & Lee E. Ohanian, 2004. "New Deal Policies and the Persistence of the Great Depression: A General Equilibrium Analysis," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(4), pages 779-816, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. David B. Audretsch & Antje Fiedler, 2023. "Power and entrepreneurship," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 60(4), pages 1573-1592, April.
    2. Posso, Alberto & Zhang, Quanda, 2023. "Social R&D: Does academic freedom contribute to improved societal outcomes?," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    3. Tang, Jintong & Ye, Wenping & Hu, Mingzhi & Zhang, Stephen X. & Khan, Shaji A., 2024. "The gendered effect of populism on innovation," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 39(4).
    4. Lucas, David S., 2024. "The effect of regime change on entrepreneurship: A real options approach with evidence from US gubernatorial elections," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 39(4).
    5. Zhuoyue Zhu & Hongming Xie, 2022. "What Do We Know and What Do We Need to Know about COVID-19’s Implications on Business Economics? From Bibliometric Analysis to a Conceptual Framework," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(11), pages 1-16, May.
    6. Yáñez-Valdés, Claudia & Guerrero, Maribel & Barros-Celume, Sebastián & Ibáñez, María J., 2023. "Winds of change due to global lockdowns: Refreshing digital social entrepreneurship research paradigm," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Röhe, Oke & Stähler, Nikolai, 2020. "Demographics and the decline in firm entry: Lessons from a life-cycle model," Discussion Papers 15/2020, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    2. Ufuk Akcigit & Sina T. Ates, 2023. "What Happened to US Business Dynamism?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 131(8), pages 2059-2124.
    3. Alon, Titan & Berger, David & Dent, Robert & Pugsley, Benjamin, 2018. "Older and slower: The startup deficit’s lasting effects on aggregate productivity growth," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 68-85.
    4. Matteo G. Richiardi & Luis Valenzuela, 2024. "Firm heterogeneity and the aggregate labour share," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 38(1), pages 66-101, March.
    5. Michael E. Waugh, 2017. "Firm Dynamics and Immigration: The Case of High-Skilled Immigration," NBER Chapters, in: High-Skilled Migration to the United States and Its Economic Consequences, pages 205-238, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Jaan Masso & Amaresh K Tiwari, 2021. "Productivity Implications Of R&D, Innovation And Capital Accumulation For Incumbents And Entrants: The Case Of Estonia," University of Tartu - Faculty of Economics and Business Administration Working Paper Series 130, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, University of Tartu (Estonia).
    7. David Kunst, 2019. "Deskilling among Manufacturing Production Workers," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 19-050/VI, Tinbergen Institute, revised 30 Dec 2020.
    8. Michael Peters, 2020. "Heterogeneous Markups, Growth, and Endogenous Misallocation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(5), pages 2037-2073, September.
    9. Xiang Ding & Teresa C. Fort & Stephen J. Redding & Peter K. Schott, 2019. "Structural Change Within Versus Across Firms: Evidence from the United States," Working Papers 2019-9, Princeton University. Economics Department..
    10. Filippo Biondi & Sergio Inferrera & Matthias Mertens & Javier Miranda, 2023. "Declining Business Dynamism in Europe: The Role of Shocks, Market Power, and Technology," Jena Economics Research Papers 2023-011, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    11. Jeremy Atack & Robert A. Margo & Paul W. Rhode, 2024. "Wage Inequality in American Manufacturing, 1820–1940: New Evidence," NBER Chapters, in: The Economic History of American Inequality: New Evidence and Perspectives, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Pierre Azoulay & Benjamin F. Jones & J. Daniel Kim & Javier Miranda, 2020. "Age and High-Growth Entrepreneurship," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 2(1), pages 65-82, March.
    13. Argente, David & Lee, Munseob & Moreira, Sara, 2018. "Innovation and product reallocation in the great recession," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 1-20.
    14. Gray, Rowena, 2013. "Taking technology to task: The skill content of technological change in early twentieth century United States," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 351-367.
    15. Oshiro, Jun & Sato, Yasuhiro, 2021. "Industrial structure in urban accounting," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    16. Maarten de Ridder, 2022. "Market power and innovation in the intangible economy," POID Working Papers 064, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    17. Thomas J. Holmes & Matthew F. Mitchell, 2008. "A theory of factor allocation and plant size," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 39(2), pages 329-351, June.
    18. Sukkoo Kim, 2007. "Immigration, Industrial Revolution and Urban Growth in the United States, 1820-1920: Factor Endowments, Technology and Geography," NBER Working Papers 12900, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Lucia Foster & Cheryl Grim & John Haltiwanger, 2016. "Reallocation in the Great Recession: Cleansing or Not?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(S1), pages 293-331.
    20. Keith Barnatchez & Robert Lester, 2017. "The Relationship Between Economic Freedom And Economic Dynamism," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 35(2), pages 358-372, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:entthe:v:46:y:2022:i:2:p:368-392. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.