Research Areas

Main fields of research:

  • New business formation processes and their impact on economic development
  • Innovation systems and innovation behavior
  • Economic development strategies
  • Markets, market failure and systems failure

Here is a video where I talk about main results of my research on the impact of start-ups on regional and national economic development. http://lt.org/publication/what-impact-do-start-ups-really-have-regional-or-national-economic-development

The main objective of my research is to derive recommendations for growth policy based on a better understanding of growth processes. My work focuses on how entrepreneurship and innovation interact with and impact economic development. Currently, I investigate the development of different types of entrepreneurship over time, the income of entrepreneurs (particularly as compared to employees), and the effect of new business formation on economic development. My research on innovation analyzes the division of innovative labor and knowledge transfer in networks of relationships among actors. A particular interest in this regard is the effect of networks and division of innovative labor on the development and performance of innovation systems.

In my empirical research I often find that region-specific factors play a significant role in the level and development of innovation activities and entrepreneurship. Since some of these regional characteristics tend to be persistent and could be viewed as elements of a regional ‘culture’, I am also interested in the determinants and the effects of these long-term influences.

More generally, I am interested in how markets operate, how and why they fail, and the design of policy aimed at ensuring their satisfactory performance.