Local Heroes in the Global Village

Entrepreneurship and growth are central concerns of policy makers around the world. Local Heroes in the Global Village introduces public policies for the promotion of entrepreneurship on a comparative, primarily German-American level. The book contributes to the debate what role public policies play in stimulating national and regional economic growth. With a better understanding of the complexity and variety of existent entrepreneurship policies in the U.S. and Germany the reader of this volume will be able to formulate best practice, hands-on strategies which aim to promote nations as well as regions in an "entrepreneurial economy".


This volume brings together conference contributions of leading academics and policy advisors from the United States and Europe. While the transatlantic conference on entrepreneurship policies was held in Germany, the program benefited from the presence of the American academics familiar with German policy issues and well known Congressional and National Academies staff familiar with policy making at the senior levels of the U.S. government.


The volume has the virtue of both providing solid empirical analysis and theoretical underpinning from leading economists (among others, Rolf Sternberg, David B. Audretsch and Paul Reynolds), social scientists as well as a fresh perspective on the myths and realities concerning the operation of the U.S. innovation system. James Turner, for example, from The House Committee on Science (U.S. Congress) provides a legislative practitioner’s view of the decisions surrounding the seminal Bayh-Dole legislation and a much better perspective of commercial oriented behavior among American universities. These multiple perspectives bring together a unique and policy relevant view of U.S. and German entrepreneurship policies as well as both innovation systems both grounded in economics and policy.