Webinar Entrepreneurship and Regional Growth in the Long Run Speakers
Entrepreneurship can promote economic performance in a variety of ways, short-term and in the longer run. A key finding of recent empirical studies is that high regional levels of entrepreneurship in terms of self-employment and new business formation tend to be rather persistent and can last for decades or even more than a century. A long tradition of regional entrepreneurship is often associated with certain mentalities and basic values of the population. Such a tradition or ‘culture’ of entrepreneurship can shape the ability of a regional economy to cope with external challenges such as national or global crises. I summarize research on long-term persistence and effects of entrepreneurship, discuss policy implications, and identify important avenues for further research.
Open to all and free to attend, this webinar series aims to bring experts in the field of regional studies, science and policy to you. The webinar can be watched live but will also available on demand. The webinars will run live once a month and feature researcher and policymaker experts. They include time for discussion, questions and comments.
Webinar archive
Past webinars will be available on-demand to RSA members.
We welcome new members to the RSA. More information on membership benefits and how to join the Association can be found at www.regionalstudies.org/about/memberships/
Entrepreneurship and Regional Growth in the Long Run
Speaker: Professor Michael Fritsch, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany
Discussant: Professor David B. Audretsch, Indiana University, USA
Chair: Professor Maryann Feldman, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA
Michael Fritsch is Senior Professor of Economics at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany, and Research Professor at the Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH). He is also Associate Editor of the academic journals Regional Studies and Small Business Economics. Michael Fritsch has received his degrees in economics (Diplom Volkswirt, Ph.D., Habilitation) from the Technical University of Berlin. From 1992-2006, he was Chair of Economic Policy at the Technical University Bergakademie Freiberg, and from 2006-2018 Chair of Business Dynamics, Innovation, and Economic Change at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena.
Michael Fritsch has published more than two hundred academic articles in scholarly journals and edited volumes as well as diverse books. His main fields of research are new business formation processes and their impact on economic development, innovation behaviour, innovation systems, and economic development strategies. A main topic of his recent research is the role of historical factors that shape the long-term development trajectories of regions. This particularly includes the role of informal institutions such as a regional culture of entrepreneurship.
David Audretsch is a Distinguished Professor and Ameritech Chair of Economic Development at Indiana University, where he is also serves as Director of the Institute for Development Strategies. He also is a part-time Professor at the Department of Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship, University of Klagenfurt, Austria and an Honorary Professor of Industrial Economics and Entrepreneurship at the WHU-Otto Beisheim School of Management in Germany.
Audretsch’s research has focused on the links between entrepreneurship, government policy, innovation, economic development and global competitiveness. He is co-author of The Seven Secrets of Germany, published by Oxford University Press. He is co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of Small Business Economics: An Entrepreneurship Journal. He was awarded the Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research by the Swedish Foundation for Entrepreneurship. He has received honorary doctorate degrees from the University of Augsburg, Jonköping University and the University of Siegen. Audretsch also was awarded the Schumpeter Prize from the University of Wuppertal.
Audretsch has consulted with numerous international organizations, including the World Bank, OECD, European Union and the United Nations. He currently serves as a member of the Advisory Board to a number of research and policy institutes, including the Swedish Entrepreneurship Forum in Stockholm, the Jackstädt Centre for Entrepreneurship in Wuppertal, Germany, and the American Center for Entrepreneurship in Washington, D.C.
Maryann P. Feldman is the Heninger Distinguished Professor in the Department of Public Policy at the University of North Carolina, an Adjunct Professor of Finance at Kenan-Flagler Business School and a Research Director at UNC Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise. Her research and teaching interests focus on the areas of innovation, the commercialization of academic research and the factors that promote technological change and economic growth. Dr. Feldman is an editor of the journal, Research Policy.
Dr. Feldman was the winner of the 2013 Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research for her contributions to the study of the geography of innovation and the role of entrepreneurial activity in the formation of regional industry clusters. Her dissertation, Geography of Innovation, examined the spatial distribution of industrial innovation and provided an empirical model of the factors and resources that affected the production of new product innovation. This publication is noted to be the first time that the term “geography” was used to describe spatial phenomenon and is now an accepted lexicon. Currently, the geography of innovation is a subject area under the strategy division of the Academy of Management.
From 2014-2017, Dr. Feldman held a joint appointment at the National Science Foundation as the Science of Science and Innovation Policy (SciSIP) Program Director and chaired an inter-agency working group on Science Policy.
Feldman’s early work revealed that universities were necessary, but not sufficient, for technology-based economic development. These findings launched a new area of investigation into university technology transfer. She has written extensively on the process and mechanics of the commercialization of academic research. Feldman’s most recent work explores emerging industries, entrepreneurship and the process of regional transformation – topics covered in the edited book, Cluster Genesis: the origins of technology-based economic development. She has written extensively on the early development and growth of biotechnology, as an example of a transformative technology. In 2010, she completed a study of the industrial applications of optical science, which demonstrated typologies of places that were able to sustain industrial optics through a variety of economic development strategies.
Currently, Feldman is actively engaged in researching the industrial genesis of the Research Triangle region, in a joint project with Nichola Lowe. The project follows the development of the regional economy over a 50 year time period using a unique database of 3200 entrepreneurial ventures and attempts to understand the institutional dynamics that created a vibrant regional economy. This research approach is being replicated in other entrepreneurially active regions including: Sophia Antipolis, France; Austin, TX; and Chatanooga, TN.
Feldman is a prolific writer whose work appears in numerous journals, including: Management Science, Organization Science, Research Policy, The Journal of Technology Transfer, American Economic Review, The Review of Economics and Statistics, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Economic Geography, and The Brookings Papers on Economic Policy.