The Coming Entrepreneurship Boom
6 Pages Posted: 17 Aug 2009
Date Written: June 1, 2009
Abstract
The United States will, at some point, recover from the current deep recession. But the overriding question upon recovery will concern resumption of growth rate. Will we return to the high growth and productivity rates of the post-1995 decade? Or, in a gloomier scenario, are we in for a sustained period of sluggish growth like what afflicted most developed countries from the early 1970s to the mid-1990s?
The primary determinant of which path we take is our level of entrepreneurial activity. In terms of job creation, innovation, and productivity, entrepreneurs drive growth. Yet a major worry is that the basic demographics of the United States will inexorably tilt the country toward sluggishness: An aging country, with the baby boom generation moving into retirement, doesn’t strike one as an entrepreneurial society.
Or does it?
Several facts have emerged in the course of Kauffman Foundation research that indicate the United States might be on the cusp of an entrepreneurship boom - not in spite of an aging population but because of it. To the extent that entrepreneurship is a key driver of economic growth, this could bode well for America’s growth potential.
Keywords: entrepreneurship, recession, boom, growth
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