The Entrepreneur

This book presents the economic theories with regards to the entrepreneur of yesterday and those of more recent years, on which issue research has been developing exponentially since the last third of the 20th Century. Much of this book will be devoted to contemporary theories. This presentation of economic theories of the entrepreneur leads us to wonder about the structural development of the free enterprise system in the short and the long term. The proliferation of entrepreneurial initiatives leads in effect to a profound transformation of modes of production and work, for example under the current phenomenon of uberization economy.

This book presents the economic theories with regards to the entrepreneur of yesterday and those of more recent years, on which issue research has been developing exponentially since the last third of the 20th Century. Much of this book will be devoted to contemporary theories. This presentation of economic theories of the entrepreneur leads us to wonder about the structural development of the free enterprise system in the short and the long term. The proliferation of entrepreneurial initiatives leads in effect to a profound transformation of modes of production and work, for example under the current phenomenon of uberization economy.

Foreword ixIntroduction xiiiChapter 1. From Term to Concept: the Entrepreneur and his Economic Function 11.1. Etymological and conceptual bases of the entrepreneur 11.2. The gradual recognition of the role of entrepreneurship 81.3. From a society of salary-earners to one of entrepreneurs? 91.4. Current definitions of entrepreneurship, or the institutional recognition of the entrepreneur 171.5. The plural entrepreneur 19Chapter 2. Quantifying Entrepreneurship, Understanding the Entrepreneurial Role 212.1. Basic principles: the OECD's model 212.2. The main entrepreneurship indicators 242.2.1. Eurostat indicators 242.2.2. OECD and Eurostat indicators 242.2.3. Global Entrepreneurship Monitor indicators 252.2.4. World Bank indicators and the business climate 282.2.5. The official quantification of business creation in France: the Business Creation Observatory 292.3. The European Union's inclusive policy to promote entrepreneurship 302.4. Supporting entrepreneurship in developing countries: the ambitions of the United Nations (UN) and the United States 31Chapter 3. Classical Economics of the Entrepreneur 353.1. Richard Cantillon: an economic agent with uncertain income 353.2. Anne Robert Jacques Turgot: the "progress" of the capitalist entrepreneur 363.3. François Quesnay, the manufacturing and commercial entrepreneur belongs to the sterile class 383.4. Pietro Verri and Cesare Beccaria, the inspiration for Jean-Baptiste Say? 383.5. Adam Smith: sympathy for initiative, but distrust of project creators 403.6. Jean-Baptiste Say: intermediary between scholar and laborer 423.7. Karl Marx, entrepreneur or officer of capital 463.8. Jean-Gustave Courcelle Seneuil, economistentrepreneur or entrepreneur-economist? 473.9. The marginalists' faux pas or Léon Walras's ghost entrepreneur 513.10. Alfred Marshall, division of industry into entrepreneurial and managerial businesses 563.11. Werner Sombart and Max Weber, the entrepreneur or the spirit of capitalism 583.12. Joseph A. Schumpeter: the entrepreneur's "new combinations of production factors" 603.13. John Maynard Keynes: the animal spirit of the entrepreneur 653.14. From uncertainty to ignorance: Ludwig von Mises, Franck Knight and Friedrich Hayek 673.15. Creating or detecting opportunities? 69Chapter 4. Contemporary Theories of the Entrepreneur 734.1. From entrepreneur to industrial economy 734.2. Ronald Coase, or the entrepreneur on the frontier of industrial economics 754.3. William Baumol, the entrepreneur and the Prince of Denmark 774.4. Mark Casson: entrepreneurship - an alternative to employment? 794.5. Scott Shane or the genetic theory of the entrepreneur 834.6. Entrepreneur, innovation, territory and social networks 854.7. Mark Granovetter - from social integration to weighted networks 884.8. Towards an evolutionist theory of the entrepreneur, or the heterogeneity of entrepreneurship 90Chapter 5. Towards a Socioeconomics of the Entrepreneur: An Overview 935.1. The 13 keywords of the economics of the entrepreneur 935.2. On the entrepreneur's personality: the player and the system 955.3. Resource potential and the social integration of the entrepreneur 1005.4. Overall picture of the theory of the entrepreneur 103Conclusion 109Bibliography 111Index 123