I’ve written before on government attempts to stimulate entrepreneurship and innovation through subsidies, prizes, tax incentives, state-funded science parks and incubators, and similar policies. Both theory and evidence suggest that these programs are unlikely to be successful , for a variety of reasons. Government actors lack the information to
The death of Fidel Castro has brought to light the catastrophic failure of Cuban socialism . Cuba, whose standard of living was among the highest in the region in 1959 , is now one of the world’s poorest countries ( questionable stats on education, healthcare, and even cigars notwithstanding). And, of course, as is obvious to anyone not named
The New York Times recently ran a fascinating piece on the innovative management practices used by sharing-economy firms like Uber, AirBNB, and TaskRabbit. These firms match riders with drivers, house guests with building owners, homeowners with plumbers, and so on. The challenge for the platform owners is that the providers are independent
That’s the title of my talk tomorrow evening at the CEVRO Institut in Prague (5pm, Tuesday 9 October). You can probably anticipate the answer, but you have to come for the full explanation! The CEVRO Institut is a private college, founded in 2005, offering undergraduate and graduate degrees in political science and international relations, public
[Cross-posted at Organizations and Markets ] Over the years I’m increasingly convinced that Israel Kirzner’s metaphor of entrepreneurship as costless discovery — a form of arbitrage, exploiting differences between actual prices and their Walrasian equilibrium values — is a misleading way to think about entrepreneurship. Emphasizing knowledge,
For once I agree with Paul Krugman, who writes: “success in business does not seem to convey any special insight into economic policy.” Unfortunately, everything in his latest column save that single sentence is completely wrong. What Krugman means is that Ben Bernanke, Janet Yellen, Mervyn King, Mario Draghi, and the other academic Keynesian
Computing and networking practices move in cycles. In the early days of computing, processing occurred in a few large mainframe computers, with users dialing in using “dumb” terminals. The PC revolution of the 1980s made it possible for simple tasks to be performed locally, on the desktop, while more complex computations took place on
[ Editor’s Note: This essay is forthcoming in The Routledge Companion to the Makers of Modern Entrepreneurship (Routledge, 2017), edited by David B. Audretsch and Erik E. Lehmann .] Abstract I briefly summarize my contributions to entrepreneurship theory, focusing on the links between contemporary entrepreneurship research, the “Austrian”
I’ve said many times that the best way government can promote entrepreneurship is to get out of the way, so I can’t support the Obama Administration’s annual Global Entrepreneurship Summit, a government-sponsored meet-and-greet for prospective entrepreneurs, funders, politicians, and hangers-on. But I agree with this statement from Vivek Wadhwa
The article is adapted from a short video by Peter Klein. The aviation world has been all atwitter about the prospect that Virgin America, the US-based subsidiary of Richard Branson’s Virgin Empire is up for sale. Reportedly, Jet Blue — another smaller American carrier — is in the lead as a possible acquirer for Virgin America.[*] The big American
What is the Mises Institute?
The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.