Abstract
The topic of entrepreneurship currently experiences a revived interest as is shown by the research agenda of today's empirical researchers. There are few issues in economics which are backed up by such a rich historical knowledge base as is the case with entrepreneurship. This paper aims to give an overview of some important classic contributions relating to today's and tomorrow's empirical research subjects. The overview consists of answers to six research questions by six historical contributors to entrepreneurship research. Together, these questions give some insight into the determinants of successful entrepreneurship. The classic contributors considered are Cantillon, Say, Marshall, Schumpeter, Knight, and Kirzner. Their views are compared to each other as well as to some recent results of empirical research into the determinants of successful entrepreneurship.
Similar content being viewed by others
REFERENCES
Barreto, H. (1989), The Entrepreneur in Economic Theory. Disappearance and Explanation, Routledge, London.
Baumol, W.J. (1968), ‘Entrepreneurship in Economic Theory,’ American Economic Review, 58, p. 64-71.
Baumol, W.J. (1993), Entrepreneurship, Management and the Structure of Payoffs, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Blanchflower, D.G. and A.J. Oswald (1998), ‘What Makes an Entrepreneur?,’ Journal of Labour Economics, 16(1), pp. 26-60.
Cantillon, R. (1979), Essai sur la Nature du Commerce en Général, Takumi Tsuda (ed.), Kinokuniya bookstore Co., Tokyo (First edition 1755).
Hébert, R.F. and A.N. Link (1988), The Entrepreneur, Mainstream Views and Radical Critiques, Praeger, New York.
Heertje, A. (1982), ‘Schumpeter's Model of the Decay of Capitalism,’ in: H. Frisch (ed.), Schumpeterian Economics, Prager Publishers, Sussex, UK, Chapter 5.
Heertje, A. (1993), ‘Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy after Fifty Years,’ in: D. Bös (ed.), Public Policy and Economic Organization, Volume III of Economics in a Changing World, Proceedings of the Tenth World Congress (1992) of the International Economic Association, Macmillan and Co., London, Chapter 3.
Kirzner, I.M. (1973), Competition and Entrepreneurship, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Knight, F.H. (1971), Risk, Uncertainty and Profit, G.J. Stigler (ed.), University of Chicago Press, Chicago (First edition 1921).
Marshall, A. (1930), Principles of Economics, Macmillan and Co., London (First edition 1890).
Praag, C.M. van and H. van Ophem (1995), ‘Determinants of Willingness and Opportunity to Start as an Entrepreneur,’ Kyklos, 48, pp. 513-540.
Praag, C.M. van (1996), Determinants of Successful Entrepreneurship, Thesis Publishers, Amsterdam.
Praag, C.M. van and J.S. Cramer, (1998), ‘An Estimated Equilibrium Model of Business Formation and Labor Demand of Entrepreneurs,’ unpublished manuscript.
Say, J.-B. (1971), A Treatise on Political Economy or the Production, Distribution and Consumption of Wealth, A.M. Kelley Publishers, New York (First edition 1803).
Schumpeter, J. (1934), The Theory of Economic Development, Harvard University Press, Cambridge Mass. (First edition 1911).
Schumpeter, J. (1939), Business Cycles, McGraw-Hill, New York/London.
Wit, G. de and F. van Winden (1989), ‘An Empirical Analysis of Self-employment in the Netherlands,’ Small Business Economics, 1, pp. 263-272.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
van Praag, C.M. Some Classic Views on Entrepreneurship. De Economist 147, 311–335 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1003749128457
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1003749128457