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Recent Event in new York, 24 February 2011: Launch of 'Entrepreneurship and Economic Development'


Entrepreneurship and Economic Development, edited by Wim Naudé, was launched at UN Headquarters in New York on 24 February 2011. Presented to an audience of around seventy and webcast around the world, the book is one of the outcomes of UNU-WIDER’s multi-year study on promoting entrepreneurial capability in developing countries.

‘Entrepreneurship is currently a hot topic’, Wim Naudé explained, and referred to the fact that governments in advanced countries are embracing the private sector as a generator of jobs and taxes and growth to kick-start their sluggish economies, that governments in emerging markets are looking for entrepreneurs to innovate and sustain their currently resource-driven growth, and that donor agencies and the poorest countries are turning to private sector development in the light of shrinking aid budgets and an increased concern over the effectiveness of ‘charitable’ aid.

The current book is pertinent to all of these debates, and makes a strong case that the current vogue for entrepreneurship should not see the role of the state diminish—indeed if there is one central theme to the book, then it is that the entrepreneurship–government relationship is critical for the eventual development path that a country follows.

At the New York book launch, from left to right: Professor William Baumol (New York University), the discussant Dr Robert Strom (Ewing Marion Kaufmann Foundation), Dr. Jean-Marc Coicaud (UNU-ONY) and Dr. Wim Naudé (editor of the book).

The book, which has been described by Professor Roger Stough from George Mason University as ‘...the single most informative work on the topic of entrepreneurship and economic development in print’ is published by Palgrave Macmillan, and can be ordered here.

Related UNU-WIDER events:

Public Lecture on Global Crises and Entrepreneurial Incentives, New York, 24 June 2010

Workshop on Entrepreneurship and Conflict, Londonderry, 20 March 2009

Workshop on Entrepreneurship, Technological Innovation, and Development, Maastricht, 30 October 2008

Related UNU-WIDER reading:

Promoting Entrepreneurship in Developing Countries: Policy Challenges. UNU Policy Brief 04/2010, by Wim Naudé

Special Issue (vol. 34, no. 1, 2010) of the Small Business Economics Journal on Entrepreneurship, Developing Countries and Development Economics, guest edited by Wim Naudé

Special section (vol. 22, no. 3, 2010) of the European Journal of Development Research on Female Entrepreneurship, guest edited by Wim Naudé and Maria Minniti