Entrepreneurial accessibility, eudaimonic well-being, and inequality

Christopher Boudreaux, Niklas Elert (), Magnus Henrekson () and David S. Lucas ()
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David S. Lucas: Syracuse University

Small Business Economics, 2022, vol. 59, issue 3, No 14, 1079 pages

Abstract: Abstract Amidst considerable debate on the relationship between entrepreneurship and economic inequality, scholarship only indirectly addresses how entrepreneurship informs individuals’ relative well-being. We theorize on the nuanced relationship between entrepreneurship and equality of eudaimonic well-being through the lens of New Institutional Economics. Drawing on theories of human flourishing, we suggest that entrepreneurial action is an underappreciated mechanism by which individuals pursue well-being. Equality of well-being is thus influenced by a society’s entrepreneurial accessibility: the freedom of individuals to choose to engage in entrepreneurial action. We present a multilevel framework in which institutional factors enable entrepreneurial action by promoting entrepreneurial accessibility—a factor, that, in turn, affects well-being for individual entrepreneurs as well as societal eudaimonic equality. The ex ante conditions for equality of well-being entail institutions that yield broad entrepreneurial accessibility. Our work highlights the institutional prerequisites for human flourishing in the entrepreneurial society beyond (unequal) economic distributions.

Keywords: Inequality; Entrepreneurship; Well-being; Institutions; Eudaimonia; D31; D63; I30; L26; O43 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Working Paper: Entrepreneurial Accessibility, Eudaimonic Well-Being, and Inequality (2021)
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DOI: 10.1007/s11187-021-00569-3

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