Entrepreneurship in a Regional Context (Regions and Cities)

Enterprise and entrepreneurship is of strong interest to policy-makers because new and small firms can be a key contributor to job and wealth creation. However this contribution varies spatially, with some areas in a country having new firm formation rates that are up to three or four times higher than others. The vast majority of these new firms begin in the geographical area in which the founder lives, works or was born emphasising that entrepreneurship is a local event. The book documents a diversity of research approaches to examining the regional determinants of entrepreneurship in countries as contrasting as India and Sweden. The Editors call is for scholars to better understand the long run factors that influence enterprise at the local and regional level. For policy makers the Editors challenge is for them to be much clearer about the targets for their policies. Is it new firms, new jobs, productivity and does it matter where these targets are delivered?

This book was published as a special issue of Regional Studies.

Michael Fritsch is Professor of Economics and Chair of Business Dynamics, Innovation, and Economic Change at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany. His main fields of research are new business formation processes and their impact on economic development, innovation systems, economic development strategies, as well as markets and market failure.

David Storey, OBE, is Professor in the School of Business Management and Economics at the University of Sussex. He is interested in the financing and performance of new firms and the public policy environment in which such firms can thrive.