The entrepreneurial advantage of world cities
Recent discussions in the economic geography literature increasingly focus on creative cities and the importance of creativity for achieving economic growth. Considering the increased attention on urban areas it is not surprising that the regional dimension of entrepreneurship is a subject of great interest. In this paper 'the entrepreneurial advantage of cities', a framework is set out encompassing the individual process between entrepreneurial perceptions and entrepreneurial activity and demonstrate how the urban environment can have an impact on this process.
Description
The authors of the paper created entrepreneurship indices for 34 world cities using the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) Database 2001-2006. They investigated the differences between the city-level and country-level for a selection of the indices. Based on the literature they expect that most indices are higher for world cities, although exceptions are plausible, for instance where the government resides. The authors' findings predominantly confirm the entrepreneurial advantage of world cities.
Background information
This report was published under the SCALES-initiative (SCientific AnaLysis of Entrepreneurship and SMEs), as part of the 'SMEs and Entrepreneurship programme' financed by the Netherlands Ministry of Economic Affairs.
Conclusions
The paper presents the following conclusions:
- Most large cities are more entrepreneurial than countries;
- The less entrepreneurial the country, the larger is the
city/countrydifference;
- The two most important city country differences are in Germany
and Japan.Tokyo's entrepreneurship rate is much lower than
Japan's. Germany has an averagecountry performance, but also
possesses some of the best performing cities inthe world, and the
largest city country differences.
Contact info
Utrecht University
Niels Bosma, n.bosma@geo.uu.nl
Publication date
8/2008
Researcher
Zoltan Acs, Niels Bosma & Rolf Sternberg
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Reference material
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Paper | The Entrepreneurial Advantage of World Cities'
08 Sep 2008, pdf, 316KB