Does the Entrepreneurial State Crowd Out Entrepreneurship?

Abstract

This paper argues that an entrepreneurial state can inadvertently crowd out entrepreneurship. Using the context provided by Singapore, the paper finds that coordinated policies that prioritize and target capital, knowledge, and human capital accumulation in particular industries, sectors, technologies, and firms have created a formidable societal knowledge filter, which in turn can impede endogenous entrepreneurial activity. By serving as the entrepreneur, Singapore’s entrepreneurial state imposes its vision by assuming the core entrepreneurial values and traits of opportunity recognition, discovery, and action. The entrepreneurial state, at least in the case of Singapore, retards the transition to an entrepreneurial society, which, paradoxically, is the vision of Singapore’s entrepreneurial state. Full paper available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-022-00604-x

Keywords: Entrepreneurial state, Entrepreneurial society, Endogenous growth, Exogenous growth, Knowledge filter, Crowding out