Institutions, Economic Freedom, and Entrepreneurship: The Contribution of Management Scholarship

Entrepreneurship is regarded as key to economic growth, job creation, and greater prosperity. Indeed, entrepreneurship drives net job growth in the United States, the European Union, and some Asian countries. Yet the United States has experienced a decline in entrepreneurial dynamism since the 1970s, and some European countries continue to struggle to build a culture of entrepreneurship despite significant policy efforts. At the same time many developing countries are experiencing a net rise in entrepreneurial activity, leading many to wonder about a specific aspect of the institutional environment, what the economics and public policy literatures call economic freedom (EF): a summary measure capturing the freedom to engage in economic activity without undue restrictions or subsidies. The papers in this symposium focus on EF, each offering a specific perspective on how scholars can theorize and study the effects of institutions and institutional change on entrepreneurship, and the effects of entrepreneurship on institutions, at and across different levels of analysis.