The Entrepreneur in Rule-based Economics ― Theory, Empirical Practice, and Policy Design

This volume brings together three areas of interest: the rule-based approach, the entrepreneur, and Japan as an empirical application. It highlights the advantages of the rule-based approach for economic analysis by linking different methodological underpinnings. Using these, the author exemplifies how rule-based economics allows a systematic analysis of the entrepreneur as the key figure in bringing about economic change and diversity. The book includes an empirical methodology for applied research in rule-based economics, which it puts to the test in an empirical study of entrepreneurship in contemporary Japan. The choice of entrepreneurship and Japan showcases the integrative power that rule-based economics brings to further breaking a theoretical deadlock and to analytically capturing a very particular economy investigated very little so far. By offering a body of new and original research, the monograph shows how the idea of entrepreneurship as a rule helps to resolve the Schumpeter-Kirzner divide and to develop an empirical approach to the determinants of entrepreneurial activity.

Georg D. Blind is a senior lecturer at the Universities of St. Gallen and Zurich and a Research Fellow with the Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies in Zurich, Switzerland. His recent research includes work on behavioural finance, labour market developments, and the utilisation of free trade agreements. He holds master’s degrees in Business and Economics (HEC Paris, St. Gallen University) and in Japanese Studies (Heidelberg University) as well as a PhD in Economics (Hohenheim University). He has been a JSPS guest researcher at Kyoto University’s Graduate School of Management (2008-2009) and a visiting researcher at The University of Tokyo in 2017. In addition to his academic activities, he has worked as a consultant with McKinsey & Company and has also undertaken contracted research for private and public sector clients (Ernst&Young, PWC, Switzerland Global Enterprise, Japan Science and Technology Agency).