Market Processes and Entrepreneurial Studies

Abstract

In 2006, Israel Kirzner received the International Award for Entrepreneurship and Small Business Research prize.1 The award cemented Kirzner's status as a leading figure in the study of entrepreneurship. It also brought at the forefront of the literature, the important contributions that the Austrian view of markets has provided and continues to provide to the field. Indeed, the last 5 years have seen a significant amount of work in entrepreneurship as well as the emergence of a new generation of scholars whose works are rooted in the Austrian tradition. While some have continued developing Kirzner's encompassing view of the entrepreneur and entrepreneurship (for example, see works by Koppl and Minniti), others have branched out in areas such as the theory of the firm (among others see works by Klein and Foss), institutions (see Boettke and Coyne), and economic growth (see Sautet and Leeson). The purpose of this chapter is to review the most important contributions to entrepreneurship emerging from the Austrian approach and position them properly within the context of Austrian social science.