William Baumol's 'Entrepreneurship: Productive, Unproductive, and Destructive'

Abstract

This chapter offers a retrospective account of Baumol’s contribution in light of its influence on economics and entrepreneurship studies. The first section describes the core arguments of his original paper. The second section discusses its impact on the entrepreneurship discipline. Following this, the third section explores some criticisms of Baumol and explains how addressing these criticisms can provide a path forward for entrepreneurship research that simultaneously does justice to Baumol’s work while also integrating it into important emerging research. The fourth section then considers the policy implications of Baumol’s work. The final short section concludes.

Keywords: William Baumol, entrepreneurship, unproductive entrepreneurship, destructive entrepreneurship, institutions, innovation, economic growth

JEL Classification: B25, B31, D02, L26, O17, O43