Entrepreneurship: Productive, Unproductive, and Destructive

@article{Baumol1990EntrepreneurshipPU,
  title={Entrepreneurship: Productive, Unproductive, and Destructive},
  author={William J. Baumol},
  journal={Journal of Political Economy},
  year={1990},
  volume={98},
  pages={893 - 921}
}
  • W. Baumol
  • Published 1 October 1990
  • Economics
  • Journal of Political Economy
The basic hypothesis is that, while the total supply of entrepreneurs varies among societies, the productive contribution of the society's entrepreneurial activities varies much more because of their allocation between productive activities such as innovation and largely unproductive activities such as rent seeking or organized crime. This allocation is heavily influenced by the relative payoffs society offers to such activities. This implies that policy can influence the allocation of… 
View on U Chicago Press
colorado.edu
4,834 Citations
Highly Influential Citations
483
Background Citations
2,215
Methods Citations
87
Results Citations
81

4,834 Citations

Entrepreneurship: Productive, unproductive, and destructive—Relative to what?

A Theory of Destructive Entrepreneurship

Policy interest since the early 1980s has focused in different ways on the creation of a large, productive, taxable economy - in which entrepreneurship plays a role for employment, income growth and…

A Theory of Destructive Entrepreneurship October 2007

Policy interest since the early 1980s has focused in different ways on the creation of a large, productive, taxable economy – in which entrepreneurship plays a role for employment, income growth and…

A Model of Destructive Entrepreneurship

The research on entrepreneurship as an economic phenomenon often assumes its desirability as a driver of economic development and growth. However, entrepreneurial talent can be allocated among…

Entrepreneurship and Institutions: A Bidirectional Relationship

The interplay between entrepreneurship and institutions is crucial for economic development; however, the view that institutions determine the extent to which entrepreneurial activity is productive…

Wealth-Creating Entrepreneurship, Innovating Entrepreneurs, and New Ventures

Some scholars believe that the traditional meaning of entrepreneurship, con fined to economic spheres alone, is too restrictive. There may be situations where creative individuals find it more…

Indirectly Productive Entrepreneurship

Since Baumol (1990), the economic literature distinguishes between two broad categories of entrepreneurship: productive and unproductive entrepreneurship. This paper attempts to introduce a third…

The Entrepreneur as Productive, Unproductive, and Constructive

That entrepreneurship is highly valued today is hardly a surprise neither to academicians involved in the study or entrepreneurship or to policy-makers trying to modify the rules of the game in order…

The non-productive entrepreneurial process

A large literature explores the importance of entrepreneurship as the catalyst of economic progress. In contrast, this paper argues that entrepreneurs are the driver of economic stagnation. We…

The interaction of entrepreneurship and institutions

Abstract: Previous research, notably Baumol (1990), has highlighted the role of institutions in channeling entrepreneurial supply into productive, unproductive, or destructive activities. However,…
...

References

SHOWING 1-10 OF 67 REFERENCES

Theory of Business Enterprise

Veblen has been claimed and rejected both by sociologists and economists as being one of theirs. He enriched and attacked both disciplines, as he did so many others: philosophy, history, social…

Patents, Priority and Imitation or, the Economics of Races and Waiting Games

The literature on the economics of scientific and technological change presents a puzzle. The phenomenon assumes a central role when historians speculate on the unprecedented growth of economic…

The European Miracle: Environments, Economies, and Geopolitics in the History of Europe and Asia.

How the West Grew Rich: The Economic Transforma-tion of the Industrial World

* Introduction * The Starting Point: The Middle Ages * The Growth of Trade to 1750 * The Evolution of Institutions Favorable to Commerce * The Development of Industry: 17501880 * Diversity of…

The Ancient Economy

"Technical progress, economic growth, productivity, even efficiency have not been significant goals since the beginning of time," declares M. I. Finley in his classic work. The states of the ancient…

The industrial revolution, 1760-1830

The Industrial Revolution has sometimes been regarded as a catastrophe which desecrated the English landscape and brought social opporession and appalling physical hardship to the workers. In this…

The Ladder of Success in Imperial China

Behavior and Development By RONALD C. JOHNSON, University of Hawaii; and GENE R. MEDINNUS, University of Denver. Emphasizes those antecedents to personality development which rest in the…

Thinking about Growth: And Other Essays on Economic Growth and Welfare

Editors' preface Preface Part I. Growth and the Economists: 1. Thinking about growth 2. Economics of growth Part II. Studies in Long-Term Growth: 3. Resource and Output Trends in the United States…

Capital Formation in Great Britain

Justification Conjecture: an opinion formed on slight or defective evidence or none. The above definition conveys very well the true character of many of the results which emerge from the exercise…

Why Was British Growth So Slow During the Industrial Revolution?

  • J. Williamson
  • Economics, History
    The Journal of Economic History
  • 1984
Although it has been labeled the “First Industrial Revolution,” British growth and industrialization was slow between the 1760s and the 1820s. The explanation seems to lie with low capital formation…
...