ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT: WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AUSTRIAN AND NEW INSTITUTIONAL APPROACHES?

What is the role of entrepreneurship in economic development from the perspective of neo-Austrian and new institutional economics and what is the difference between these approaches? Neo-Austrian economists claim that economic development is caused by entrepreneurial discovery. New institutional economists argue that structure of incentives determined by the institutional environment provides a guideline for entrepreneurial decision-making. Hence, an institutional environment that rewards rent-seeking does not provide opportunities for economic development. In this paper we offer a comparison of these approaches to show that both entrepreneurial discovery and institutional environment are closely related. Moreover, with the comparison we demonstrate that entrepreneurial decision-making plays more important role in economic development when an institutional change is taken into account.