Illuminating and timely, this book explores several theoretical and empirical issues related to the potential for increasing capacities for innovation, knowledge and entrepreneurship. It highlights the current academic and political consensus that calls for policy interventions targeted towards more balanced, inclusive and regionally cohesive growth.

As cities face increasing global competition and fiscal constraints in the post-recession economy, many city leaders wonder from what source future growth will emerge. One answer to this question is innovation, but the act of entrepreneurship assembles the components of knowledge and technology in the innovation process and amplifies the factors of economic growth. Cities that create and foster a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship will be better positioned for economic recovery, job creation, greater resiliency, and the potential for regional economic transformation. The paper examines the concepts of innovation and entrepreneurship in relation to job creation from startups and young and second-stage small business and reviews the barriers and policy options that local governments can use to address them. The paper proposes a role for local government policy in cultivating and fostering an innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem with strategies that research has shown help to remove barriers and support entrepreneurs' and small business development. Local actions and programmatic approaches can facilitate networks of public and private stakeholders that build trust and collaboration and leverage of local and regional assets. The paper suggests possible problems that these approaches can encounter due to varied conceptions of entrepreneurship and innovation. The last section of the paper considers the fiscal issues associated with development and support of an innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem, as well as how a nuanced fiscal structure may capture the fiscal impacts.

The need for informed and effective insights into key concepts and models of regional development and growth, from an endogenous growth perspective, has risen over the past decade. These recent advances address in particular local and regional assets and characteristics comprising inter alia creativity, knowledge, innovation forces and entrepreneurship. Access to and exploitation of these modern forms of human and social capital are of paramount importance for the dynamic regional economic environment in a city or region. This volume offers an overview and critical treatment of the spatial-economic roots, opportunities and impacts of new growth strategies, mainly from an evidence-based perspective. In the various contributions to this volume, relevant findings and strategic options are interpreted and discussed from both an analytical and a policy perspective to help cultivate creativity, human capital development and innovation as well as entrepreneurial activity, with a view to exploit the drivers of economic development, in order to strengthen the competitive edge of cities and regions.

In the midst of a global slowdown in productivity, unlocking the innovative potential of rural places is more important than ever. As part of a series on supporting to help rural areas thrive, this thematic report provides the latest analysis and research on rural innovation, and proposes ways to overcome the growing gaps between rural and urban places that are contributing to the geographies of discontent.

As cities face increasing global competition and fiscal constraints in the post-recession economy, many city leaders wonder from what source future growth will emerge. One answer to this question is innovation. Cities that create a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship will be better positioned for economic recovery, job creation, greater resiliency, and the potential for regional economic transformation. The paper explores the role of local government policy in cultivating and fostering an innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem. In particular, it focuses on local economic development and fiscal policies that can create and foster this ecosystem.

Healing the economic and social wounds inflicted by the COVID-19 pandemic will take time, but the long road to recovery presents a unique opportunity to build back better. To catalyze change and succeed in the post-pandemic era, economic development policy and practice must see the crisis as an opportunity to rethink and redesign regional economic systems. This will involve creating a shared understanding of – and policies to address – the differential impacts of the pandemic across occupations, industries, and socioeconomic groups. This book explores the challenges and opportunities heralded by the virus in the broadest sense and presents case studies on equitable and inclusive economic recoveries.

"Innovation and entrepreneurship are ubiquitous today, both as fields of study and as starting points for conversations among experts in government and economic development. But while these areas on continue to attract public and private investments, many measurements of their resulting economic growth-including productivity growth and business dynamism-have remained modest. Why this difference? Because not all business sectors are the same, and the transformative gains of some industries have been offset by stagnation or contraction in others. Accordingly, a nuanced understanding of the economy requires a nuanced understanding of where innovation and entrepreneurship occur and where they matter. Answering these questions allows for strategic public investment and the infrastructure for economic growth.The Role of Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Economic Growth, the latest entry in the NBER conference series, seeks to codify these answers. The editors leverage industry studies to identify specific examples of productivity improvements enabled by innovation and entrepreneurship, including those from new production technologies, increased competition, new organizational forms, and other means. Taken together, the volume illuminates whether the contribution of innovation and entrepreneurship to economic growth is likely to be concentrated, be it selected sectors or more broadly"--