Frontier Economics: Why Entrepreneurial Capitalism is Needed Now More than Ever

Abstract

Here in the United States and around the world, we have entered what might be called the era of “frontier economics.” Older, easier sources of growth are drying up and, as a result, the prospects for continued dynamism and prosperity hinge more than ever before on the pioneering entrepreneurial upstarts that explore and extend the technological frontier. As a consequence, the political imperative to maintain satisfactory economic performance is putting national economies under ongoing pressure to free up markets and knock down artificial barriers to competition - in other words, to make their particular versions of capitalism more entrepreneurial. The purpose of this paper is to offer a general explanation of this trend and the social forces driving it.