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Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Economic Development: An Overview
Adam Szirmai, Wim Naudé, and Micheline Goedhuys

1.1 Purpose of the book
Economic development requires sustainable and shared increases in per capita income accompanied by changes in the structural composition of an economy towards higher value added goods and more efficient production methods. Entrepreneurs can contribute to economic development by facilitating the reallocation of resources from less to more productive uses (Acs and Storey 2004), by performing ‘cost-discovery’, ‘gap-filling’, and ‘input-completing’ functions in the economy (Leibenstein 1968; Hausmann and Rodrik 2003) and by supporting structural change (Lewis 1954; Gries and Naudé 2010). These roles have recently been the subject of a growing literature (see e.g. Minniti and Naudé 2010; Naudé 2010a, 2010b, 2010c). A neglected function in this literature is the potential role of entrepreneurs as innovators in developing countries. Joseph Schumpeter pointed out a century ago that entrepreneurs are often innovators, bringing new goods and technologies to markets, opening up new markets, processes, and ideas, and commercializing new knowledge. But, it is often mistakenly suggested that innovation by entrepreneurs is less important for growth in low-income developing countries than in more advanced economies.1 A substantial literature has been devoted to understanding the conditions under which entrepreneurs innovate, and the nature and evolution of national systems of innovation (see e.g. Lundvall 1992; Nelson 1993). By and large, however, this literature has been concerned with the process of innovation and its dynamics in advanced economies. Research at the intersection of the fields of entrepreneurship, innovation, and development is still in its infancy.
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Szirmai, Naudé, and Goedhuys

In this book we provide perspectives