How can education for innovative entrepreneurship be carried out more effectively?
There is a growing body of opinion that an effective curriculum has not yet been designed to train prospective entrepreneurs for the creation or operation of firms that feature new products and processes. Yet it is arguable that these innovative entrepreneurs are those that make the greatest contribution to economic abundance and growth. The center is exploring what education at the university can offer this group and how it can do so most effectively. In particular it concerns itself with education that does not impede creativity and exercise of the imagination, rather than focusing on details of operation of a conventional, if newly established, business firm.
2. The role in the economy's innovation process of the independent entrepreneur as contrasted with that of the large firm that spends heavily on R&D.
There is at least preliminary evidence that a disproportionate share of breakthrough innovation is provided with the help of the independent entrepreneur, while the large corporation, which provides the bulk of the funding of U.S. R&D, specializes far more in incremental improvements. The Berkley Center research on this subject investigates whether this characterization is in fact valid in reality and, if so, whether the implications for growth and the general welfare are significant. The evidcence also suggests that the large firms employ a disproportionate number of holders of higher degrees, notably the PhD, while many of the successful innovating entrepreneurs have far more limited education. The research investigates the significance of this difference, notably for improvement of the educational process
3. Policy for facilitation of productive entrepreneurship in developing and developed economies.
Even the most underdeveloped economies manifestly contain a number of enterprising individuals. But, typically, their innovative activities are designed to secure them a powerful position in the bureaucracy, military power or corrupt judicial positions. Even in developed economies such impediments to growth are not absent and innovative approaches to rent seeking are common. Effective policy incentives for enhancement of productive entrepreneurial activity arguably involve the creation of enhanced impediments to such unproductive employment of entrepreneurial talent and increased rewards for productive entrepreneurship. These and other approaches to encouragement of entrepreneurial activities that are productive and innovative are another primary focus of our research.
4. The Entrepreneur in history.
History provides a number of examples of societies that have been remarkably inventive. Medieval China, ancient Rome and the Soviet Union are the most obvious illustrations. But equally striking is the absence in these societies of economic growth rates comparable to those of the free market economies in the preceding three centuries. A careful study of the role of the entrepreneur in history should help us to understand the impediments to growth that can prevent a profusion of invention from leading to economic abundance, and what can facilitate such a consequence. The Berkley Center has been joined by a number of the world’s leading economic historians in a systematic historical survey that examines these issues.
