This chapter explores how notions of reciprocity shape new fiscal subjectivities in Ghana’s capital Accra. Drawing on historical sources, public debates and observations in public tax forums, I first discuss the long-term dynamics of ‘tax bargaining’ in Ghana since the colonial times, premised on power holders providing sufficient evidence of recipocity and return for tax payments. Secondly, this chapter provides a portrait of the intimate stakes of reciprocity between the state and citizens that characterize the process of becoming a taxpayer. By zooming in on the aspirations of a single female trader who went through the bureaucratic journey of formalizing her business and becoming a taxpayer, I propose the notion of the “nurturing state” to illustrate the intimate, personalized qualities of reciprocity that characterise emerging fiscal subjectivities in Ghana.

The chapter examines the relationship between the size and diversity of the expellee population and entrepreneurship and occupational change in West Germany. Using statistical data at the municipal and county levels, it documents a reversal of fortune: although expellee presence presented economic challenges in the immediate postwar period, in the long run, it increased entrepreneurship rates, education, and household incomes. The more regionally diverse the expellee population, the better the long-run economic performance in receiving communities.

The chapter examines how the size and diversity of the migrant population shaped economic outcomes in western Poland using statistical analysis. It shows that when state institutions were extractive, the composition of the migrant population played no role in shaping economic performance. Once institutions became more inclusive, however, municipalities settled by more regionally diverse populations registered higher incomes and entrepreneurship rates. The chapter then rules out a series of alternative explanations for these findings.

This chapter explains and discusses the definition of public sector innovation. Public sector innovation includes two concepts or terms: (1) public sector and (2) innovation. The first concept, “the public sector,” refers to the general government organizations owned and funded by the government and may include or exclude state-owned enterprises. The second concept, “innovation,” refers to novel ideas or practices implemented organizations. Thus, novelty and implementation are two key terms defining innovation. Therefore, public sector innovation refers to innovative activities in the public sector, and this chapter provides information about it. In addition, this chapter discusses how and in what ways innovation differs from public management reforms, organizational change, invention, creativity, entrepreneurship, and improvement.

This chapter analyzes the importance of insolvency law for the promotion of economic growth as well as the goals and strategies of insolvency law. It is argued that, even though insolvency law seeks to solve similar economic problems across jurisdictions, the intensity of these problems and the desirability of a particular insolvency response depend on a variety of country-specific and firm-specific factors. Unfortunately, many emerging economies have adopted insolvency laws that usually replicate practices existing in countries with totally different market and institutional environments. As a result, it is not surprising that insolvency law has failed to deliver the expected outcome in emerging economies. The chapter concludes by providing a general overview of the structure of the book and the underlying reasons justifying the need to reinvent insolvency law in emerging economies and beyond.

With the emergence of big data and artificial intelligence, the feasibility of central planning has again become a popular topic. The essential feature of the planned economy is the use of systematic and institutional force to negate entrepreneurship and deprive individuals of the freedom to choose, especially the freedom to start a business and innovate. Can big data revive the planned economy? The essence of this question is: Can big data displace entrepreneurship? The impossibility of a big data-based planned economy is demonstrated from five perspectives (i.e. the nature of knowledge, the nature of entrepreneurial decisions, the distinction between risk and uncertainty, the importance of ideas, and the evolutionary view). In other words, big data cannot replace entrepreneurship. The false belief that central planning is possible with big data is extremely naïve.

The first chapter primarily discusses entrepreneurship from the perspective of F.A. Hayek’s theories of knowledge, holding that indescribable “soft knowledge” is the most critical to entrepreneurs. Without understanding the importance of soft knowledge, it is impossible to understand entrepreneurship. Using the case of how F. Tudor, the American entrepreneur, created a mass market for ice, the author emphasizes the four points of entrepreneurship: alertness to profitable opportunities, imagination of the future, simplification of complexity, and perseverance and patience.

This chapter discusses the six standards of a good market theory. A good market theory must be able to explain how humanity can cooperate in the extended order based on division of labor. It must explain how the reputation mechanism works in promoting human cooperation. A good market theory should be a theory about how the economy develops and changes, not only a theory about how the market reaches equilibrium and stability. Entrepreneurship is the soul of the market economy. Without entrepreneurs, a true orderly market is not possible, and neither is true progress. A good market theory must be able to explain economic fluctuations and business cycles. Economic fluctuations and business cycles are related to entrepreneurial decisions and innovations. A good market theory should be of rights-priority (putting rights above interests) rather than utilitarian (putting interests above rights). In terms of all these standards, neoclassical economics is not a good theory of the market.

This chapter discusses mainstream economics’ misunderstanding of monopoly law. Mainstream economics’ conceptions of competition and monopoly are incorrect. Ignoring entrepreneurship is the primary reason for this misunderstanding. Entrepreneurship and competition are two sides of the same coin. In markets with free entry, competition always exists because competition is the essence of entrepreneurship. True monopolies necessarily come from governmental – or related entities’ – limits on market entry or preferential treatment. As long as freedom of entry exists, entrepreneurs will always attempt to find new opportunities and innovative methods to overthrow the current market leader. Entrepreneurship is the best anti-monopoly law because it is more conducive to the breakdown of monopolies than any legal provisions or policies.

Entrepreneurship can have transformative impacts that benefit rural areas and uplift underserved communities. In higher education, entrepreneurship instruction has grown over the last half century but is in its nascent stage in nonformal youth development settings. This chapter highlights the value of Extension youth entrepreneurship education programs that are contextualized, account for the audience’s unique needs and available resources, are designed with clear program goals to frame effective delivery and evaluation, and that build capacity for sustainable programmatic implementation. We further propose that Extension can draw from and capitalize on the current literature on entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship education for best practices in program development. Finally, we describe UpStarts, an entrepreneurship program that is intended to support positive socio-cognitive outcomes (e.g., entrepreneurial mindsets) and foster social connections among youth in rural communities. Implications focus on the role of Extension in translating research to effective practices to support youth entrepreneurship education in the communities.

In Chapter 9, we have a conventional treatment of the model of “perfect competition,” with an extension to competition in markets by “price takers.” We detail profit maximization in the short run and long run. We also have lengthy discussions about the vital role of entrepreneurship; the myth of “the first-mover advantage”; and the importance of finding optimal team size and team pay.

Chapter 6 shows how false Stories help to perpetuate the economic imbalance described in Chapter 4. These Stories include those of economic growth, comparative advantage, creative destruction, and ceaseless innovation. Most of them originate in mainstream economics, including praise for shareholder interests and insistence on social choice theory. Karl Polanyi claimed that such Stories, which endorse a society roiled by constant change, ignore what he called community welfare.

From the 1980s, globalization produced conditions that demanded tough decisions in a complex set of fluctuating economic circumstances. This required more decision-makers, who discarded almost all virtue but success. Chapter 8 shows that to this new managerial elite, the moral character of the professionals was at best an old-fashioned affectation, at worst the sanctimonious preaching of the old establishment, bleating over their loss of prestige. Managers began to treat those merely applying their expertise as plug-and-play professionals, able to be manoeuvred in and out of place according to flexible strategies. These were applied under a new cliché: ‘work smarter, not harder’, where the ‘smarter’ referred mainly to managerial innovation. Under this managerial regime, success was the only virtue that mattered, while traditional aspects of professional virtue, still needed for professional work to succeed, were embedded into systems for quality and risk management, launching a process of moral deskilling. In this context, professionals turned to a more generic ‘effectiveness’ into which they could pour their personal professional values. This kept them investing relentlessly in their own human capital, reducing the kind of virtue that sought a better world into a category of virtuous consumption.