The economics of entrepreneurship and institutions

The research group emphasizes the importance of entrepreneurship, innovations and institutions (“the rules of the game”). The entrepreneur is regarded as the primus motor of the economy, because her/his ability to commercialize innovations. Institutions, in particular private property rights, are decisive because they determine the conditions for entrepreneurship. The research group, consequently, studies how the entrepreneurial function is defined in different economic traditions and which economic policy that creates favourable conditions for entrepreneurship, growing firms and structural transformation. The question whether some firms are more important than others for generating employment and economic growth, for instance young, small, fast growing or family owned, is of particular interest. The research is largely based on Swedish linked employer-employee data, which are of internationally high quality.