Entrepreneurship and the process of firms’ entry, survival and growth

Enrico Santarelli () and Marco Vivarelli ()

Industrial and Corporate Change, 2007, vol. 16, issue 3, pages 455-488

Abstract: This survey article aims at critically discussing the recent literature on firm formation and survival and the growth of new-born firms. The basic purpose is to single out the microeconomic entrepreneurial foundations of industrial dynamics (entry and exit) and to characterise the founder's ex-ante features in terms of likely ex-post business performance. The main conclusion is that entry of new firms is heterogeneous with innovative entrepreneurs being found together with passive followers, over-optimist gamblers and even escapees from unemployment. Since founders are heterogeneous and may make “entry mistakes,” policy incentives should be highly selective, favouring nascent entrepreneurs endowed with progressive motivation and promising predictors of better business performance. This would lead to the least distortion in the post-entry market selection of efficient entrepreneurs. Copyright 2007 , Oxford University Press.

Date: 2007

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/icc/dtm010 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:indcch:v:16:y:2007:i:3:p:455-488

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.oup.co.uk/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Industrial and Corporate Change is edited by David Teece, Glenn R. Carroll, Nick Von Tunzelmann, Giovanni Dosi and Franco Malerba

More articles in Industrial and Corporate Change from Oxford University Press
Address: Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK
Series data maintained by Christopher F. Baum ().