Niklas ElertResearch Institute of Industrial Economics | IFN
Niklas Elert
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Publications (55)
It is well-known that men and women differ in their views regarding the severity of climate change, but do they also differ in their support for climate policy and in undertaking climate action in their everyday lives? Previous survey evidence on these questions is inconclusive, but we can answer them using unique survey data from the Swedish Envir...
Formal institutions, for example, regulations, are considered crucial determinants of entrepreneurship, but what enables regulatory change when there is a regulatory void, meaning entrepreneurship clashes with existing regulations? Drawing on public choice theory, we hypothesize that regulatory freedom facilitates the introduction of legislation to...
Among contemporary economists, Mariana Mazzucato stands out for her emphasis on the importance of innovation to solving pressing challenges and achieve a greater quality of life. However, the type of mission-oriented innovation policies she promotes usually rely on an overly mechanical view of innovation and economic growth. We employ an ecosystem...
Amidst considerable debate on the relationship between entrepreneurship and economic inequality, scholarship only indirectly addresses how entrepreneurship informs individuals’ relative well-being. We theorize on the nuanced relationship between entrepreneurship and equality of eudaimonic well-being through the lens of New Institutional Economics....
Entrepreneurship plays a pivotal role for institutional change and economic development in transition and developing economies. Formal and informal institutions in such countries are often sub-par, but rather than being constrained by them, entrepreneurship can often affect institutions and contribute to their evolution. We highlight three entrepre...
In the wake of the corona crisis, the European Union must regain lost ground and create more favorable conditions for inclusive and sustainable economic growth. The best way to achieve this goal is by increasing the Union’s innovativeness. This effort requires extensive and broad-based institutional reforms aimed at strengthening the incentives for...
We demonstrate how successful entrepreneurship depends on a collaborative innovation bloc (CIB), a system of innovation that evolves spontaneously and within which activity takes place through time. A CIB consists of six pools of economic skills from which people are drawn or recruited to form part of a collaborative team, which is necessary for in...
We demonstrate how successful entrepreneurship depends on a collaborative innovation bloc (CIB), a system of innovation that evolves spontaneously and within which activity takes place through time. A CIB consists of six pools of economic skills from which people are drawn or recruited to form part of a collaborative team, which is necessary for in...
Researchers increasingly recognize that entrepreneurial employees, intrapreneurs, play a critical role in innovation. As with regular entrepreneurship, however, the value of intrapreneurial activity depends on the firm-specific and societal reward structures that intrapreneurs face. Ideally, these rules of the game are such that they reward intrapr...
We present the theory of the collaborative innovation bloc (CIB), an evolving system of innovation within which activity takes place over time. We show how the application of the CIB perspective can help make institutional and evolutionary economics more concrete, relevant, and persuasive, especially regarding policy prescriptions. Such policy acti...
Entrepreneurship plays a pivotal role for institutional change and economic development in transition and developing economies. Formal and informal institutions in such countries are often sub-par, but rather than being constrained by them, entrepreneurship can often affect institutions and contribute to their evolution. We highlight three entrepre...
We demonstrate how successful entrepreneurship depends on a collaborative innovation bloc (CIB), a system of innovation that evolves spontaneously and within which activity takes place through time. A CIB consists of six pools of economic skills from which people are drawn or recruited to form part of a collaborative team, which is necessary for in...
We argue that scholars in the Austrian tradition of economics should incorporate the notion of a collaborative innovation bloc into their study of spontaneous market orders. We demonstrate how successful entrepreneurship depends on an innovation bloc of this kind, a system of innovation that evolves and within which activity takes place through tim...
We are grateful for the comments to our article, and for the opportunity to respond to them. In our original contribution, we argued that the application of the EOE perspective could help make Austrian economics more concrete, relevant and persuasive, especially regarding policy prescriptions. At the heart of this perspective is the idea that entre...
Property rights protection and the rule of law are arguably the most fundamental economic institutions of any society. They form the foundation of any entrepreneurial ecosystem and affect the effectiveness of collaborative innovation blocs. To promote an entrepreneurial society, there is therefore no alternative but to ensure that these foundationa...
The European Union suffers from an innovation deficit, which must be remedied if the EU is to improve the quality of life of its citizens and remain competitive in the global marketplace. We explain why productive entrepreneurship is a way towards restoring inclusive, innovative, and sustainable growth in Europe before presenting the theoretical fr...
To promote innovation and economic growth in the European Union, we have outlined a reform strategy with respect to the institutions and policies that matter the most for fostering a productive entrepreneurial economy. Here, we conclude by summarizing all the previous chapters and discussing how the 50 proposals presented can be used as building bl...
New, innovative business venturing hinges on the creation and mobilization of human capital and knowledge. The proposals in this chapter aim to strengthen and expand the European knowledge space in which Europe’s entrepreneurs build their ventures. Reforms to improve the production and flow of knowledge touch on educational systems, research instit...
In providing incentives and rewards, the tax system matters greatly for innovative entrepreneurial venturing. Because a host of different taxes affect entrepreneurship, we discuss reforms in several areas, including labor, capital, corporate, and private wealth taxation. The most important principles an entrepreneurial tax system should enshrine ar...
Increasing the availability of skilled labor to small and innovative ventures is imperative if entrepreneurship and innovation are to flourish within the European Union. Building up a qualitatively and quantitatively fitting labor force is always a challenge for new, growing ventures, but Europe’s labor market and social security systems tend to cr...
Opening up European markets for goods and services would put European entrepreneurs at an equal footing with incumbent firms. For entrepreneurial venturing both market entry and exit are of crucial importance and the European Union has strong legal competencies in these areas, following the treaties to build the European Common Market. However, esp...
To promote an entrepreneurial society, many of the institutions that mobilize and allocate savings and financial resources in the European Union must be reformed. The proposals in this area seek to address the bias against small, innovative, and young ventures in Europe’s financial markets, dominated by banks and large pension funds. These intermed...
This article examines gender differences in optimism about the economy. We measure optimism using Swedish survey data in which respondents stated their beliefs about the country’s future economic situation. We argue that this measure of optimism is preferable to common measurements in the literature since it avoids confounding individuals’ economic...
This open access book builds on the European Union’s (EU) Horizon 2020 project ‘Financial and Institutional Reforms for an Entrepreneurial Society’ (FIRES). The authors outline how Europe can move towards more inclusive, innovative and sustainable growth through reforms that will rekindle its entrepreneurial spirit. Based on decades of research and...
While entrepreneurship researchers agree that institutions ‘matter’ for entrepreneurship, they also have a rather encompassing understanding of institutions as almost any external factor that influences entrepreneurship. Ultimately, this literature thus comes up with a long list of institutional factors that may explain entrepreneurial differences...
The European Union suffers from an innovation deficit, which must be remedied if the EU is to improve the quality of life of its citizens and remain competitive in the global marketplace. In order to do so, more productive entrepreneurship is required. We analyze how Europe’s institutional framework conditions could become more supportive of entrep...
To promote innovation and economic growth in the European Union, we propose a reform strategy with respect to the aforementioned nine areas, which we consider to be the most pertinent institutions and policies in order to foster a productive entrepreneurial economy. Overall, the proposed institutional changes move in a liberalizing direction, but w...
This chapter provides a theoretical foundation to help identify the areas where the need for reform is the greatest. The theories of the experimentally organized economy and of entrepreneurial ecosystems are used to identify six competencies, in addition to that of the entrepreneur, that are necessary for ideas to be generated, identified, selected...
In this chapter, we discuss the institutions that the previous literature identifies as the most relevant for nurturing the activities of entrepreneurs and other actors in the ecosystem’s skill structure. Overall, we discuss nine areas: (i) the rule of law and the protection of property rights; (ii) the tax system; (iii) regulations governing savin...
It is imperative that the economies of the European Union become more entrepreneurial to promote innovation and economic growth. To achieve these goals, we propose a reform strategy with respect to (i) the rule of law and the protection of property rights; (ii) the tax system; (iii) regulations governing savings, capital and finance; (iv) the organ...
The interplay between entrepreneurship and institutions is crucial for economic development; however, the view that institutions determine the extent to which entrepreneurial activity is productive is only part of the story. We argue that causality is bidirectional, in that entrepreneurship is also, for better or for worse, one of the main drivers...
This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license.
The interplay between entrepreneurship and institutions is crucial for economic development; however, the view that institutions determine the extent to which entrepreneurial activity is productive is only part of the story. We argue that causality is bidirectional, in that entrepreneurship is also, for better or for worse, one of the main drivers...
Purpose
– Evasive entrepreneurs innovate by circumventing or disrupting existing formal institutional frameworks. Since such evasions rarely go unnoticed, they usually lead to responses from lawmakers and regulators. The paper aims to discuss this issue.
Design/methodology/approach
– The authors introduce a conceptual model to illustrate and map t...
We argue that evasive entrepreneurship is an important, although underrated, source of innovation, and provide the first systematic discussion of the concept. We define evasive entrepreneurship as profit-driven business activity in the market aimed at circumventing the existing institutional framework by using innovations to exploit contradictions...
It is frequently argued that policymakers should target high-tech firms, i.e., firms with high R&D intensity , because such firms are considered more innovative and therefore potential fast-growers. This argument relies on the assumption that the association among high-tech status, innovativeness, and growth is actually positive. We examine this as...
It is frequently argued that policymakers should target high-tech firms, i.e., firms with high R&D intensity, because such
firms are considered more innovative and therefore potential fast-growers. This argument relies on the assumption that the
association among high-tech status, innovativeness, and growth is actually positive. We examine this ass...
This paper studies the long-term impact of entrepreneurship education and training in high school on entrepreneurial entry, performance, and survival. Using propensity score matching, we compare three Swedish cohorts from Junior Achievement Company Program (JACP) alumni with a matched sample of similar individuals and follow these for up to 16 year...
Prior studies have defined high-growth firms (HGFs) in terms of growth in firm employment or firm sales, and primarily analyzed their contribution to overall employment growth. In this paper we define HGFs using the commonly applied growth indicators (employment and sales), but also add definitions based on growth in value added and productivity. O...
In this paper, I examined what conditions affected the entry of Swedish limited liability firms 2000–2008, while making a distinction between regular entrants and those that survive for at least 2 years. I used a dataset that makes it possible to trace entry geographically as well as in what industry it occurs down to the 5-digit NACE level. Result...
The purpose of this paper is to distinguish between the determinants of new start-ups and in migration of firms using a data-set that covers 13,471 limited liability firms in the Swedish wholesale trade industries during the period 2000- 2004. Our results indicate that the presence of a university more than doubles the expected number of entrants a...
Gibrat’s Law predicts that firm growth is a purely random effect and therefore should be independent of firm size. The purpose of this paper is to test Gibrat’s law within the retail industry, using a novel data-set comprising all Swedish limited liability companies active at some point between 1998 and 2004. Very few studies have previously invest...
The purpose of this paper is to investigate if the industry context matters for whether Gibrat's law is rejected or not using a dataset that consists of all limited firms in 5-digit NACE-industries in Sweden during 1998-2004. The results reject Gibrat's law on an aggregate level, since small firms grow faster than large firms. However, Gibrat's law...
Previous examinations of the literature suggests that high-growth firms (HGFs) exist in all or most industries, are not overrepresented in high-tech, and if anything appear to be slightly overrepresented in services. In an updated overview, we find that more recent studies, employing better statistical methods, show a clear link between technologic...
Prior studies have defined high-growth firms (HGFs) in terms of sales or employment, and analyzed their contribution to employment growth. We define HGFs by employment and sales and add definitions of value added and productivity. We examine the contribution of HGFs to employment growth, economic growth, productivity growth, and sales growth. All H...
Previous literature suggests that high-growth firms (HGFs) exist in all industries and that they are not overrepresented in high-tech. Recent research, employing better statistical methods, indicates a link between industry innovation and HGFs. However, most studies have been based on a limited number of industries, excluded small firms, applied ma...
Projects
Project (1)
To identify the most important policy areas and measures likely to create a favorable environment for entrepreneurship and innovation in Europe. To formulate a reform strategy informed by the “varieties of capitalism” approach, but without abandoning the long-term goal of institutional liberalization in order to promote entrepreneurship, innovation and growth.
