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Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism, and the Economics of Growth and Prosperity
In this important book, three prominent economists propose that there are different varieties of capitalism in the world today--some good for economic growth, others decidedly bad. Writing in an accessible style, William J. Baumol, Robert E. Litan, and Carl J. Schramm documentfour different varieties of capitalism and identify the conditions that characterize Good Capitalism—the right blend of entrepreneurial and established firms, which can vary among countries—as well as the features of Bad Capitalism. They examine how countries catching up to the United States can move faster toward the economic frontier, while laying out the need for the United States itself to stick to and reinforce the recipe for growth that has enabled it to be the leading economic force in the world. This pathbreaking book is a must read for anyone who cares about global growth and how to ensure America’s economic future.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2007
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January 2, 2023
I hesitate to include a star rating, not because I struggled to settle on a score, but because I doubt its ability to indicate how much someone else might enjoy it. I really struggled to get through this, but that’s probably more due to my dislike of the subject than any fault of the authors’.
I’m of the old fashioned opinion that people should be viewed as living things and not resources, so the downplaying of the importance of leisure/family time didn’t sit well. Their defense of capitalism against environmental concerns also didn’t impress me. The notion that increased gas prices due to depleted fossil fuels will encourage people to travel less and invest in more fuel-efficient vehicles really sounds like something someone in the upper class would say (because, who cares about people who can’t afford Teslas?). Also, what about every time California experiences yet another drought and there's another news article about rich people still watering their lawns?
“A society where all have the same incomes, for example, would provide no incentives for growth,” (p. 24). Oh right; We can’t take care of the poor, disabled, and marginalized because then no one would try. Take care of the economy first, and then we can solve those pesky problems of healthcare and retirement for aging populations, environmental concerns, and reducing poverty.
But THIS is why I really hate economics:
“It is nonetheless important to consider these precapitalist economies because they are home to tens, if not, hundreds, of millions of people living at subsistence levels whose plight deserves the world’s attention, not simply for moral reasons but because they cannot be good customers for our products and, more important, at least for those of us who live in other societies, they can be breeding grounds for diseases and for terrorists who threaten the lives of those in more developed societies,” (p. 61).
All that to say, this review is moot. In an effort to be at least somewhat useful though, here is my attempt to talk about the book and not the subject:
First off, this is the kind of book that probably faces the problem of becoming outdated. The references to the cutting-edge-“ness” of Napster and the Blackberry (“which permits wireless e-mailing,” p. 247) were more quaint than anything to discredit the points made, but it did make me wonder if any data in the last 15 years counters anything about the authors’ argument.
There is also a really bad analogy at the beginning of the book: They stated that the “purchasing power of an average American a century ago was one-tenth ago what it is today,” (p. 2) and then say that’s the same as if you lost nine-tenths of your current salary, but wouldn’t you also have to lower modern-day costs for (reverse) inflation too? I’m not an economist, so I just had to take a lot of what they said at face value, but kicking off the book with such an obviously flawed thought exercise caused me to wonder what weak points my untrained ear (brain?) might be missing.
Essentially, the authors distinguish four variations of capitalism (state-guided, oligarchic, big-firm, and entrepreneurial), and use historical examples to demonstrate which combination is the best (spoiler: big-firm and entrepreneurial). To this point, their case seems pretty solid (although they do later add the caveat that this is only best once a country’s economy has reached the “technological frontier”). I would agree that there are different shades of capitalism (or any socioeconomic system, for that matter), and the ones they put forward as being the best in terms of stimulating growth seem reasonable.
They then go on to outline the four conditions for maximizing growth, four elements of a successful entrepreneurial economy (why always four?), etc. They’re fans of antitrust laws (but not treble-damage provisions), streamlined business registration, unrestrictive labor laws, and the privatization of banks; and not fans of foreign aid, tariffs, and micro-lending (which “may help cure poverty, but it is not the promising source of funding for truly innovative entrepreneurs,” p. 221).
While they are not keen on government “safety net” programs (e.g. universal health insurance and unemployment programs), they at least concede that “evidence is slim that they are major contributing factors to slow productivity growth,” (p. 201). Additionally, they advocate spending growth in entitlement programs and raising taxes (by keeping marginal income rates the same but cutting back on exemptions and deductions).
As uninvested as I was early on, my interest only continued to wane in the last few chapters, where they give advice on how to transform economies into big-firm/entrepreneurial capitalism (chapter 6), how to maintain balance of big-firm and entrepreneurial capitalism (chapter 8), how to improve on the US’ current patent system (chapter 8), etc.. Maybe I should have cared more, from the stance of being a more informed voter, but I just felt like these parts were largely useless to anyone who isn’t a policy maker.
There were lots of sections I was tempted to skip over, especially when they put sentences like, “Put in a nutshell, we will suggest in this chapter…” at the beginning. It was also kind of annoying how often they refer to things they are going to mention in the upcoming pages. A more technical issue was how surprisingly often small (but important) words like “in” were accidentally omitted.
One thing that did catch my interest was the Gini coefficient (a standard measure of income inequality) chart: Excepting Mexico, the USA has the highest income inequality of all OECD countries, ranking only a few points lower than some of the lower-ranking Latin American countries (which are “broadly characterized by oligarchic capitalism,” p. 72) that were selected for comparison. It was interesting because it sort of supported the feeling that I was getting throughout the book that the US’ economy is more oligarchic than the authors would admit.
Overall, some of the earlier-to-mid chapters were “good” (in terms of educating upon a subject, and supporting one’s argument), and the later chapters could also be considered relevant if you think the general public benefits from national policy suggestions, so two stars might seem like an unfair rating (And I’d probably agree with you). The low rating definitely has to do with my own prejudices towards the soulless discipline of economics, but I feel like I can defend myself (perhaps weakly) by pointing out that the book failed to convince me otherwise.
I’m of the old fashioned opinion that people should be viewed as living things and not resources, so the downplaying of the importance of leisure/family time didn’t sit well. Their defense of capitalism against environmental concerns also didn’t impress me. The notion that increased gas prices due to depleted fossil fuels will encourage people to travel less and invest in more fuel-efficient vehicles really sounds like something someone in the upper class would say (because, who cares about people who can’t afford Teslas?). Also, what about every time California experiences yet another drought and there's another news article about rich people still watering their lawns?
“A society where all have the same incomes, for example, would provide no incentives for growth,” (p. 24). Oh right; We can’t take care of the poor, disabled, and marginalized because then no one would try. Take care of the economy first, and then we can solve those pesky problems of healthcare and retirement for aging populations, environmental concerns, and reducing poverty.
But THIS is why I really hate economics:
“It is nonetheless important to consider these precapitalist economies because they are home to tens, if not, hundreds, of millions of people living at subsistence levels whose plight deserves the world’s attention, not simply for moral reasons but because they cannot be good customers for our products and, more important, at least for those of us who live in other societies, they can be breeding grounds for diseases and for terrorists who threaten the lives of those in more developed societies,” (p. 61).
All that to say, this review is moot. In an effort to be at least somewhat useful though, here is my attempt to talk about the book and not the subject:
First off, this is the kind of book that probably faces the problem of becoming outdated. The references to the cutting-edge-“ness” of Napster and the Blackberry (“which permits wireless e-mailing,” p. 247) were more quaint than anything to discredit the points made, but it did make me wonder if any data in the last 15 years counters anything about the authors’ argument.
There is also a really bad analogy at the beginning of the book: They stated that the “purchasing power of an average American a century ago was one-tenth ago what it is today,” (p. 2) and then say that’s the same as if you lost nine-tenths of your current salary, but wouldn’t you also have to lower modern-day costs for (reverse) inflation too? I’m not an economist, so I just had to take a lot of what they said at face value, but kicking off the book with such an obviously flawed thought exercise caused me to wonder what weak points my untrained ear (brain?) might be missing.
Essentially, the authors distinguish four variations of capitalism (state-guided, oligarchic, big-firm, and entrepreneurial), and use historical examples to demonstrate which combination is the best (spoiler: big-firm and entrepreneurial). To this point, their case seems pretty solid (although they do later add the caveat that this is only best once a country’s economy has reached the “technological frontier”). I would agree that there are different shades of capitalism (or any socioeconomic system, for that matter), and the ones they put forward as being the best in terms of stimulating growth seem reasonable.
They then go on to outline the four conditions for maximizing growth, four elements of a successful entrepreneurial economy (why always four?), etc. They’re fans of antitrust laws (but not treble-damage provisions), streamlined business registration, unrestrictive labor laws, and the privatization of banks; and not fans of foreign aid, tariffs, and micro-lending (which “may help cure poverty, but it is not the promising source of funding for truly innovative entrepreneurs,” p. 221).
While they are not keen on government “safety net” programs (e.g. universal health insurance and unemployment programs), they at least concede that “evidence is slim that they are major contributing factors to slow productivity growth,” (p. 201). Additionally, they advocate spending growth in entitlement programs and raising taxes (by keeping marginal income rates the same but cutting back on exemptions and deductions).
As uninvested as I was early on, my interest only continued to wane in the last few chapters, where they give advice on how to transform economies into big-firm/entrepreneurial capitalism (chapter 6), how to maintain balance of big-firm and entrepreneurial capitalism (chapter 8), how to improve on the US’ current patent system (chapter 8), etc.. Maybe I should have cared more, from the stance of being a more informed voter, but I just felt like these parts were largely useless to anyone who isn’t a policy maker.
There were lots of sections I was tempted to skip over, especially when they put sentences like, “Put in a nutshell, we will suggest in this chapter…” at the beginning. It was also kind of annoying how often they refer to things they are going to mention in the upcoming pages. A more technical issue was how surprisingly often small (but important) words like “in” were accidentally omitted.
One thing that did catch my interest was the Gini coefficient (a standard measure of income inequality) chart: Excepting Mexico, the USA has the highest income inequality of all OECD countries, ranking only a few points lower than some of the lower-ranking Latin American countries (which are “broadly characterized by oligarchic capitalism,” p. 72) that were selected for comparison. It was interesting because it sort of supported the feeling that I was getting throughout the book that the US’ economy is more oligarchic than the authors would admit.
Overall, some of the earlier-to-mid chapters were “good” (in terms of educating upon a subject, and supporting one’s argument), and the later chapters could also be considered relevant if you think the general public benefits from national policy suggestions, so two stars might seem like an unfair rating (And I’d probably agree with you). The low rating definitely has to do with my own prejudices towards the soulless discipline of economics, but I feel like I can defend myself (perhaps weakly) by pointing out that the book failed to convince me otherwise.
June 29, 2019
Thoughtful and lucid nontechnical essays on the very different structures hiding behind the vague anticoncept 'capitalism'. The title alone beats most leftists and rightists, who tend to tacitly deny the existence of good or bad capitalisms, respectively. (Where by good we mean "good for growth and eliminating poverty".) The authors go further of course, with four ideal types:
* state-guided capitalism (China, 60s Japan, Singapore)
* big-firm capitalism (South Korea, Japan, France, North Carolina)
* entrepreneurial capitalism - high growth from small companies doing actually new things, high distribution of gains - (Ireland, UK, California)
* oligarchic capitalism - low growth, low distribution of gains - (Russia, Italy, sometimes South Korea)
They tie these to specific policies, often lacking in these kinds of books. They also accept that what's "good" economic policy depends on your existing base (cf. Ha-Joon Chang's argument for trade barriers for pre-industrial countries). Most of the book is about the conditions and effects of entrepreneurship, but they also find big firms actually necessary ("the best form of capitalism is a blend of entrepreneurial and big-firm"), well before Tyler Cowen.
Decent paean to the moral importance of growth too:
Good book for anyone who thinks they hate economics, or economists, or neoclassical economics, or growth itself. Certainly much more readable and fair than Piketty's mega-bestseller. (For very adversarial people, better to start with Filthy Lucre , which analyses good and bad forms of competition.)
* state-guided capitalism (China, 60s Japan, Singapore)
* big-firm capitalism (South Korea, Japan, France, North Carolina)
* entrepreneurial capitalism - high growth from small companies doing actually new things, high distribution of gains - (Ireland, UK, California)
* oligarchic capitalism - low growth, low distribution of gains - (Russia, Italy, sometimes South Korea)
They tie these to specific policies, often lacking in these kinds of books. They also accept that what's "good" economic policy depends on your existing base (cf. Ha-Joon Chang's argument for trade barriers for pre-industrial countries). Most of the book is about the conditions and effects of entrepreneurship, but they also find big firms actually necessary ("the best form of capitalism is a blend of entrepreneurial and big-firm"), well before Tyler Cowen.
Decent paean to the moral importance of growth too:
slow growth, especially when coupled with widening inequality, can provide an environment that breeds distrust and often hate. It is not an accident that some of the worst periods of intolerance to African Americans and immigrants in United States history (the late 1800s, the 1930s, 1970s) occurred during periods of slow or negative growth. The worst-case example of this was, of course, the rise of Nazism...
Michael Mandel: 'Such technology-driven growth is essential if we are not to drown in our own problems... Without breakthroughs in medical science, it won't be possible to supply the healthh care to a generation of aging Americans without bankrupting the young. Without breakthroughs in energy production, it won't be possible to bring Third World economies up to industrialised living standards without badly damaging the environment...'
If annual growth of In 100 years average
labor productivity is earnings will have risen
2% 620%
3% 1820%
Good book for anyone who thinks they hate economics, or economists, or neoclassical economics, or growth itself. Certainly much more readable and fair than Piketty's mega-bestseller. (For very adversarial people, better to start with Filthy Lucre , which analyses good and bad forms of competition.)
August 9, 2011
I was intrigued by the review in the Economist and was excited with the first 100 or so pages. I have now arrived at page 137 and am seriously considering putting the book away. Not because of the ideas, the authors bring forward, but the way it's being done. Every few pages, words are missing in the sentence (take out 'in' and you know what I mean) or words are used incorrectly. Then there are the references. Referencing other authors, books, maybe even parts of the text that are still to come, fine, but referring to parts that a reader has already read is a bit much. In addition, reiterating a theme very often ("the optimal mix is a blend of...") does not make for an interesting, but rather boring read. When the authors start giving the same lengthy explanation more than once, then you really start to question the editorial process.
This book was probably not written to be read from start to finish, but rather to flipped through, stopping when a topic sounds interesting. Sadly the authors do not mention this in their preface. A stricter editorial touch would have done a world of difference and gotten the word out to even more readers. The ideas deserve this.
PS: the review from Economist is online here (you need membership to access): http://www.economist.com/books/displa...
This book was probably not written to be read from start to finish, but rather to flipped through, stopping when a topic sounds interesting. Sadly the authors do not mention this in their preface. A stricter editorial touch would have done a world of difference and gotten the word out to even more readers. The ideas deserve this.
PS: the review from Economist is online here (you need membership to access): http://www.economist.com/books/displa...
April 23, 2019
With the end of the Cold war and the fall of the Berlin wall, capitalism triumphed over socialism. The authors recognized that there are different types of capitalism. The capitalistic systems can be generalized to four which are state-guided, oligarchic, big-firm, and entrepreneurial. As the title suggests, the authors favor the big-firm and entrepreneurial capitalism over the state-guided and oligarchic capitalism. The book is mostly an exposition of the benefits of having an economy that incentivizes entrepreneurial activities for the purpose of growing the economy.
Economic growth is important for living standards and sources of income. Growth via technological advance has the added benefit of preventing diminishing returns. Entrepreneurship is key to sustainable growth. Entrepreneurs can either imitate products or invent new products. Imitating products helps but only gets a country so far, while entrepreneurs need to take a lot of risk developing new products. To incentivize new products, the inventors need to be able to be compensated for the ingenuity and risk by way of increased income via a patent.
Patents can help bring new advances to light, but having very strict patents can retard adaption of new products. Patents which have little improvements or are made after a product is wide spread can disincentivize entrepreneurs due to the increased risk of a heavy fine. Patents are only one way to incentivize entrepreneurs, another is to have a safety net. As new products are competitors for consumers, there will be products which will no longer be supplied. A safety net to help the victims of change can help reduce the cost of risk taking, thereby enabling more risk taking. The safety net is culturally constructed, but it should not be strong enough to prevent risk taking.
Growth being paramount in this book, the capitalisms which incentivize growth such as big-firm and entrepreneurial are the good types, while bad capitalisms such as state-guided and oligarchic have other priorities than growth. State-guided capitalism advantage is that the industry or firm that government selects to aid and be the producer has huge production enabling economies of scale for low cost production; the disadvantage being that consumers do not get the products they want, the aided firms can be over invested at the expense of others, and difficulty removing the aid. Oligarchic capitalism has the advantage of economies of scale; the disadvantage is having a huge informal sector as formal entrants would compete with the oligarchs. Big-firm capitalism benefits from trying to compete with others and economies of scale; the disadvantage are higher priced products, and new products are not common with the potential of the firm to profit from existing products rather than invent new ones. Entrepreneurial capitalism has the advantage of a diverse knowledge base which creates breakthrough innovations; the disadvantage is having a lack of economies of scale. There four capitalisms are generalizations and economies exhibit a mix of these capitalisms.
The state can help facilitate growth only so far, it required the entrepreneurs to make growth sustainable. States can incentivize entrepreneurial activity such as supporting imitation of products and disincentivize unproductive activities such as lobbying government for policies with narrow benefits rather than society wide benefits. Changes to the incentive structure are inherently political and should be done incrementally rather than in a shock-therapy manner. Incremental change will give time for the participants to adept to the new policies. A policy which facilitates entrepreneurial activity is external, welcoming foreign products and ideas. Foreign products and ideas can provide any country with new sources of income and innovation.
There are a few problems with the biases exhibited toward favoring privatization and technology. The authors make a claim state-guided capitalism is a bad system due to the crises it causes, and that it may take another crisis to learn that state-guided capitalism is a bad system. If crises are only supposed to occur in state-guided capitalism, then there should not many crises in the big-firm and entrepreneurial capitalism. As there are many crises in non-state-guided capitalisms, the authors misrepresent the ideas for and against state-guided capitalisms. One such misrepresentation is the claim that that government is bad at picking winners without reference that the market makes many mistakes as well. Another bias of the authors is being over optimistic of technology. Their analysis of technology seems to be that entrepreneurs will develop technology to fix everything. Even if technologies to solve every problem may come, they may be too late to solve the problem, or come with many more problems. Technologies also rely on markets for their production, and markets have problems of their own which do not incentive the production of certain technologies.
The authors do not provide a panacea for economic woes, but a historical lesson in which entrepreneurs are the key to growth. Culture and policy impact whether and how entrepreneurship is accessible in the country. Many people have skills, but it takes an appropriate institutional structure to utilize the skills. Advancement in products and services can be found in many foreign countries. Foreign expertise should not bring fear as those products and services will make it to other countries who will be able to utilize them. Out of the four generalized capitalisms, the big-firm ad entrepreneurial capitalisms are those which enable sustainable growth.
Economic growth is important for living standards and sources of income. Growth via technological advance has the added benefit of preventing diminishing returns. Entrepreneurship is key to sustainable growth. Entrepreneurs can either imitate products or invent new products. Imitating products helps but only gets a country so far, while entrepreneurs need to take a lot of risk developing new products. To incentivize new products, the inventors need to be able to be compensated for the ingenuity and risk by way of increased income via a patent.
Patents can help bring new advances to light, but having very strict patents can retard adaption of new products. Patents which have little improvements or are made after a product is wide spread can disincentivize entrepreneurs due to the increased risk of a heavy fine. Patents are only one way to incentivize entrepreneurs, another is to have a safety net. As new products are competitors for consumers, there will be products which will no longer be supplied. A safety net to help the victims of change can help reduce the cost of risk taking, thereby enabling more risk taking. The safety net is culturally constructed, but it should not be strong enough to prevent risk taking.
Growth being paramount in this book, the capitalisms which incentivize growth such as big-firm and entrepreneurial are the good types, while bad capitalisms such as state-guided and oligarchic have other priorities than growth. State-guided capitalism advantage is that the industry or firm that government selects to aid and be the producer has huge production enabling economies of scale for low cost production; the disadvantage being that consumers do not get the products they want, the aided firms can be over invested at the expense of others, and difficulty removing the aid. Oligarchic capitalism has the advantage of economies of scale; the disadvantage is having a huge informal sector as formal entrants would compete with the oligarchs. Big-firm capitalism benefits from trying to compete with others and economies of scale; the disadvantage are higher priced products, and new products are not common with the potential of the firm to profit from existing products rather than invent new ones. Entrepreneurial capitalism has the advantage of a diverse knowledge base which creates breakthrough innovations; the disadvantage is having a lack of economies of scale. There four capitalisms are generalizations and economies exhibit a mix of these capitalisms.
The state can help facilitate growth only so far, it required the entrepreneurs to make growth sustainable. States can incentivize entrepreneurial activity such as supporting imitation of products and disincentivize unproductive activities such as lobbying government for policies with narrow benefits rather than society wide benefits. Changes to the incentive structure are inherently political and should be done incrementally rather than in a shock-therapy manner. Incremental change will give time for the participants to adept to the new policies. A policy which facilitates entrepreneurial activity is external, welcoming foreign products and ideas. Foreign products and ideas can provide any country with new sources of income and innovation.
There are a few problems with the biases exhibited toward favoring privatization and technology. The authors make a claim state-guided capitalism is a bad system due to the crises it causes, and that it may take another crisis to learn that state-guided capitalism is a bad system. If crises are only supposed to occur in state-guided capitalism, then there should not many crises in the big-firm and entrepreneurial capitalism. As there are many crises in non-state-guided capitalisms, the authors misrepresent the ideas for and against state-guided capitalisms. One such misrepresentation is the claim that that government is bad at picking winners without reference that the market makes many mistakes as well. Another bias of the authors is being over optimistic of technology. Their analysis of technology seems to be that entrepreneurs will develop technology to fix everything. Even if technologies to solve every problem may come, they may be too late to solve the problem, or come with many more problems. Technologies also rely on markets for their production, and markets have problems of their own which do not incentive the production of certain technologies.
The authors do not provide a panacea for economic woes, but a historical lesson in which entrepreneurs are the key to growth. Culture and policy impact whether and how entrepreneurship is accessible in the country. Many people have skills, but it takes an appropriate institutional structure to utilize the skills. Advancement in products and services can be found in many foreign countries. Foreign expertise should not bring fear as those products and services will make it to other countries who will be able to utilize them. Out of the four generalized capitalisms, the big-firm ad entrepreneurial capitalisms are those which enable sustainable growth.
January 30, 2008
Great book for economics majors and people who are really into international fiscal policy. Argues that the best recipe for increasing the productivity level of any economy is a mix between big-firm and entrepreneurial capitalism (which is one of 4 types of capitalism). Very informative overall, and helps explain the continued economic dominance of the U.S. over able competitors like the EU and Japan. But the big caveat with this book is the readability. Not a quick and easy read and heavy on the details, which is why my 2 stars are to keep the average reader away (read a summary, it'll do you just fine), and I'd give it 4 stars for the niche business/economy readers out there.
February 10, 2013
Finally read this through. Not having an economic background this book was easily accessible and I think its hypothesis has plenty of merit.
July 22, 2022
The only remarkable piece of the book is the differentation of the West Europe and Japan vs. Usa with respect to the enterpreneurship due to their cultural and historical divergence.
The rest is superficial and a bundle of obsolete flattery for US economic system.
The rest is superficial and a bundle of obsolete flattery for US economic system.
April 3, 2024
I read this book as research for a paper I'm writing and it had some good points with plenty of research to back it up. My problem lies with the slightly western centric undertones that discount other schools of thought particularly indigenous ones i.e “precolonial”.
January 2, 2012
Centering on the idea that entrepreneurship is a key determinant of sustained economic growth, this book prescribes four national level measures: 1) Make it easy for entrepreneurs to start businesses (ie. bankruptcy protection and access to finance); 2) Ensure successful entrepreneurs are rewarded (ie. contract and property rights, taxation, and regulations); 3) Discourage unproductive entrepreneurship (ie. unlawful or non-value adding); and 4) Incentivize continual innovation and commercialization of ideas (ie. open markets and anti-trust).
This book draws on past studies and historical events to guide the development of policies specific to developed and developing countries in support of greater entrepreneurship . India, Taiwan, China, UK, Japan, Ireland and the US demonstrate that there is no one-size fits all solution. Distinctions however in their level of education, culture, democracy, macroeconomic stability, pace of change and governance over time helps to draw out important factors that support sustained economic growth.
Micro-lending only forms part of the solution by merely helping to replicate rather than innovate new ideas. What is needed are policies that promote innovative entrepreneurship at the margin through progressive and transitional changes to important contributing factors such as labor protections, capital markets and property rights. Some more tangible suggestions include governments monitoring and disseminating important global technical developments for the benefit of their business community and accelerating the commercialization of university-based innovations.
This book draws on past studies and historical events to guide the development of policies specific to developed and developing countries in support of greater entrepreneurship . India, Taiwan, China, UK, Japan, Ireland and the US demonstrate that there is no one-size fits all solution. Distinctions however in their level of education, culture, democracy, macroeconomic stability, pace of change and governance over time helps to draw out important factors that support sustained economic growth.
Micro-lending only forms part of the solution by merely helping to replicate rather than innovate new ideas. What is needed are policies that promote innovative entrepreneurship at the margin through progressive and transitional changes to important contributing factors such as labor protections, capital markets and property rights. Some more tangible suggestions include governments monitoring and disseminating important global technical developments for the benefit of their business community and accelerating the commercialization of university-based innovations.
February 14, 2014
Although I was bored after the first 200 pages and felt that there won't be add value any more (The tone of the book was very descending), But It's a very important book whether to those who are interfered with Economics or those who aren't.
I didn't feel that the presentation of the ideas was neutral; as It was from the United states angle or vision to the other Economies..
Anyhow the book gives us a very good classifying about capitalism also the rule and importance of the entrepreneurship..
I didn't feel that the presentation of the ideas was neutral; as It was from the United states angle or vision to the other Economies..
Anyhow the book gives us a very good classifying about capitalism also the rule and importance of the entrepreneurship..
February 14, 2011
1. Replicative entrepreneurship is important in most economies because it represents a route out of poverty, a means by which people with little capital, education, or experience can earn a living.
2. But if economic growth is the object of interest, then it is the innovative entrepreneur who matters.
2. But if economic growth is the object of interest, then it is the innovative entrepreneur who matters.
Currently reading
August 1, 2007Currently reading
Want to read
June 5, 2009I just had the pleasure of meeting Carl Schramm, and am looking forward to reading this book!
Read
September 22, 2011Complimentary book from the Kauffman Foundation is surprisingly good!
March 24, 2016
Why Entrepreneurship is essential to our future. Take a step back and consider the alternatives to entrepreneurial capitalism.
January 7, 2011
very very good book about capitalism that covers both sides..
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews