Technological concentration and innovation have been identified as important forces behind growth, and entrepreneurship has been recognized as an important link between new knowledge and economic growth. This article examines the influence of entrepreneurship and technology concentration on employment growth in U.S. metropolitan areas (MSAs) over the course of the last full business cycle from 1991 to 2007. The findings are in support of the efficacy of entrepreneurship together with high technology expansion in job creation. The findings question the view that entrepreneurship in and of itself, or a high but not growing high technology concentration, can be strong contributors to employment growth. In contrast, this analysis indicates that MSAs with growing high-tech activities and above-average entrepreneurship can be expected to add jobs much faster than other MSAs. The findings suggest a need for a more targeted approach to economic development and job creation.
AcsZ.ArmingtonC. (2004). The impact of geographic differences in human capital on service firm formation rates. Journal of Urban Economics, 56, 244-278.
2.
AcsZ.AudretschD.BraunerhjelmP.CarlssonB. (2009). The knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship. Small Business Economics, 32(1), 15-30.
3.
AcsZ.AudretschD.BraunerhjelmP.CarlssonB. (2012). Growth and entrepreneurship: An empirical assessment. Small Business Economics, 39, 289-300.
4.
AcsZ. J.AnselinL.VargaA. (2002). Patents and innovation counts as measures of regional production of new knowledge. Research Policy, 31, 1069-1085.
5.
AcsZ. J.AudretschD. B.FeldmanM. P. (1994). R&D spillovers and recipient firm size. Review of Economics and Statistics, 76, 336-341.
6.
AnselinL.VargaA.AcsZ. J. (1997). Local geographic spillovers between university research and high technology innovations. Journal of Urban Economics, 42, 422-448.
7.
AnselinL.VargaA.AcsZ. J. (2000). Geographic spillovers and university research: A spatial econometric perspective. Growth and Change, 31, 501-516.
8.
AudretschD. B.KeilbachM. (2005). Entrepreneurship capital and regional growth. Annals of Regional Science, 35, 457-469.
9.
BealB.GimenoJ. (2002). Geographic agglomeration, knowledge spillovers and competitive evolution (Working Paper No. 2001/26/SM). Fontainebleau, France: INSEAD.
10.
CampM. (2005, April). The innovation-entrepreneurship NEXUS: A national assessment of entrepreneurship and regional economic development (No. 256). Powell, OH: Small Business Advocacy Research Summary.
11.
ChowG. C. (1960). Tests of equality between sets of coefficients in two linear regressions. Econometrica, 28, 591-605.
12.
ColganC. S.BakerC. (2003). A framework for assessing cluster development. Economic Development Quarterly, 17, 352-366.
13.
DruckerP. (1985). Innovation and entrepreneurship: Practice and principles. New York, NY: Harper & Row.
14.
FallahH.IbrahimS. (2004). Knowledge spillover and innovation in technological clusters. Paper presented at the proceedings of the IAMOT 2004 conference, Washington, DC.
FormbyJ.HooverG.KimH. (2001). Economic growth and poverty in the United States. Journal of Income Distribution, 10(304), 6-22.
17.
GittellR.SohlJ. (2005). Technology centers during the economic downturn: What have we learned?Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, 17, 293-312.
18.
GittellR.Tebaldi.E. (2009). The New Hampshire forum of the future: NH high technology sector re-inventing itself? What does it mean to NH’s economy. Concord, NH: New Hampshire Forum on the Future.
19.
GittellR.TebaldiE. (2007). Did a strong economy in the 1990s affect poverty in U.S. metro areas?Economic Development Quarterly, 21, 354-368.
20.
GlaeserE. L.RosenthalS. S.StrangeW. C. (2010). Urban economics and entrepreneurship. Journal of Urban Economics, 67(1), 1-14.
21.
GlaeserE.ScheinkmanJ.ShleiferA. (1995). Economic growth in a cross section of cities. Journal of Monetary Economics, 36, 117-143.
GrilichesZ., (1992). The search for R&D spillovers. Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 94(Suppl.), S29-S47.
24.
HausmanJ. A. (1978). Specification tests in econometrics. Econometrica, 46, 1251-1271.
25.
HendersonJ.WeilerS. (2010). Entrepreneurs and job growth: Probing the boundaries of time and space. Economic Development Quarterly, 24, 23-32.
26.
HooverG.FormbyJ.KimH. (2004). Poverty, non-white, and the Sen index. Review of Income and Wealth, 50, 543-559.
27.
JaffeA. B. (1986). Technological opportunity and spillovers of R&D: Evidence from firms’ patents, profits, and market value. American Economic Review, 76, 984-1001.
28.
JaffeA. B.TrajtenbergM.FogartyM. R. (2000). Knowledge spillovers and patent citations: Evidence from a survey of inventors. American Economic Review, 9, 215-219.
29.
JaffeA. B.TrajtenbergM.HendersonR. (1993). Geographic localization of knowledge spillovers as evidenced by patent citations. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 108, 577-598.
30.
KassiciehS. (2010). The knowledge economy and entrepreneurial activities in technology-based economic development. Journal of the Knowledge Economy, 1, 24-47.
31.
MaursethP. B.VerspagenB. (2002). Knowledge spillovers in Europe: A patent citations analysis. Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 104, 531-546.
32.
MortensenD. T.PissaridesC. A. (1998). Technological progress, job creation, and the job destruction. Review of Economic Dynamics, 1, 733-753.
33.
RosenbloomJ. (2007). The Geography of innovation commercialization in the U.S. during the 1990s. Economic Development Quarterly, 21, 3-16.
34.
ThompsonE.HammondG.WeilerS. (2006). Amenities, local conditions and fiscal determinants of factor growth in rural America (Research Working Paper RWP 06-08). Kansas City, MO: Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
35.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2012). The Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW). Retrieved from http://www.bls.gov/cew/
36.
van StelA.CarreeM.ThurikR. (2005). The effect of entrepreneurial activity on national economic growth. Small Business Economics, 24, 311-321.
37.
WallstenS. J. (2001). An empirical test of geographic knowledge spillovers using geographic knowledge spillovers using geographic information systems and firm-level data. Regional Science and Urban Economics, 31, 571-599.
