The implications of Knightian uncertainty are frequently discussed in the context of market-based institutional settings. Given money prices, entrepreneurs can engage in calculative action, in conjunction with ‘judgment’, to guide decision-making and bring about a coordination of production plans with consumer preferences. However, if the existence of Knightian uncertainty is ubiquitous and applies to all human action, then what are its implications in non-market institutional settings? This paper explores questions related to the implications of Knightian uncertainty for two important non-market institutional settings: democratic government and the nonprofit or philanthropic sector, where there is an explicit lack of monetary calculation, yet nonprofit and political entrepreneurs still must use ‘judgment’ to deal with Knightian uncertainty. For instance, what are the implications of private property and privatized cost in the case of nonprofits versus the absence of private property and socialized cost in the case of democracy, in the presence of Knightian uncertainty? Which group of ‘consumers’ is likely to have their preferences satisfied when it comes to nonprofits (benefactors or beneficiaries) and democratic government (voters or lobbyists)? The paper, thus, points to the importance of further research on the implications of Knightian uncertainty in the hard case of non-market institutional settings.

This study examines the relative importance of local institutions and external finance on small business investment. Utilising the institutional theory, we argue that local institutions and external finance have heterogeneous effects on firm investment. More importantly, they may interact and moderate each other. Analysing a set of 1.3 million observations of small businesses operating in Vietnam (2006–2016) obtained from the Annual Enterprise Survey data from the Vietnam Statistics Office, we find that local institutional settings and external finance are important determinants of firm investment. Moreover, local institutions are able to moderate the effects of external finance on firm investment. As such, this study asserts that conventional models cannot discern whether institutions or external finance are more important to firm investment. Rather, the relative importance of institutions and external finance should be investigated from the perspective of their interaction.

Highly turbulent environments require firms to act entrepreneurially. The returns to entrepreneurial activities are known as entrepreneurial rents. Following the payments perspective, these rents are allocated to the entrepreneurial resources of the firm as factor payments. However, unlike other factor payments, little is known about how to value these types of rents. An analysis of the economics and management literature reveals that entrepreneurial rents are a return to alertness, subjective judgment, asset control, and uncertainty bearing. Furthermore, entrepreneurial rents are noncontractible and temporary. This paper introduces two complementary valuation models that capture these characteristics and that explicitly impute value to various entrepreneurial activities.

Is entrepreneurship an innate ability or an acquired skill? Can entrepreneurial acumen be achieved and enhanced through education and training, or are certain people “born” to be entrepreneurs or to act entrepreneurially? Economists and management theorists give widely divergent answers to these questions. This paper reviews the major approaches to teaching entrepreneurship, primarily at the undergraduate level, and relates them to economic theories of entrepreneurship. Surprisingly, we find little connection between the leading approaches to entrepreneurship education and economists' understanding of the entrepreneurial function. We assess likely explanations for the lack of contact between these two groups of scholars and suggest possible improvements.

Small research firms developing biotechnology applications often focus on establishing intellectual property rights (IPRs), which can then be sold to more established firms with existing market channels. This paper presents a method for valuing the IPRs for an innovation that lowers product production costs below those associated with the patented process of a monopolist. The application to Glucocerebrosidase enzyme from transgenic tobacco suggests an IPRs value of about $1.75 billion. Despite the innovator's market power, significant surplus gains also accrue to consumers. Further, U.S. antitrust laws that prohibit IPRs acquisition by the current monopolist increase consumer welfare by almost 50%.

This paper illustrates the spread of Jean-Baptiste Say's entrepreneur theory in Spain –a last contribution within the French tradition in which Richard Cantillon and A. R. J. Turgot were predecessors. We attempt to demonstrate that this is a special case, because, even though J. B. Say was the most important author from a publishing point of view, his economic theory of entrepreneurship had very little influence. The spread of economic ideas by way of translation and Spanish authors which employed J. B. Say's economic theory, give possible explanations to a paradox which had left economic policy without a theoretical reference. We analyse how Say's entrepreneur theory was received among Spanish authors in the 19th century, its degree of comprehension and the analytical additions made, and attempt to identify the real source of transmission.

This article has two objectives: to analyse a leading businessman, José Martínez Rivas, a distinguished leader of Biscayan industrialization, and to apply economic theory to his case for a better understanding of Spanish business history. The business life of Martinez Rivas and the evolution of his fortune has been reconstructed with archive sources. The article is divided into three parts. The first section examines the origins and first years of his main business activities. A second section describes the evolution and results in each of these. A third and final part, applies Schumpeterian entrepreneur theory to Martinez Rivas' business initiatives. The conclusions summarize the main contributions of this work and open a door to further related research and the theory applied.

We have reported variants of the M13 bacteriophage major coat protein (P8) that enable high copy display of monomeric and oligomeric proteins, such as human growth hormone and steptavidin, on the surface of phage particles (Sidhu SS, Weiss GA, Wells JA. 2000. High copy display of large proteins on phage for functional selections. J Mol Biol 296:487–495). Here, we explore how an optimized P8 variant (opti-P8) could evolve the ability to efficiently display a protein fused to its N-terminus. Reversion of individual opti-P8 residues back to the wild-type P8 residue identifies a limited set of hydrophobic residues responsible for the high copy protein display. These hydrophobic amino acids bracket a conserved hydrophobic face on the P8 alpha helix thought to be in contact with the phage coat. Mutations additively combine to promote high copy protein display, which was further enhanced by optimization of the linker between the phage coat and the fusion protein. These data are consistent with a model in which protein display-enhancing mutations allow for better packing of the fusion protein into the phage coat. The high tolerance for phage coat protein mutations observed here suggests that filamentous phage coat proteins could readily evolve new capabilities.

The total DNA of ten isolates of different chlorophycean algal genera was extracted according to a protocol for the extraction of fungal DNA. Algal DNA was digested with up to ten different restriction endonucleases. In Southern hybridizations, DNA was probed with a digoxigenin-labelled 440 base pair (bp) fragment of bacteriophage M13 containing a repetitive sequence with a 15 bp core repeat. Stringency conditions for the detection of banding patterns in algae of different genera are described. The stability of DNA fingerprints of subcultures of the same isolate was investigated. DNA fingerprints of isolates of the genera Chlorella, Klebsormidium and Stichococcus were compared. The results show that the M13 minisatellite probe can be used to detect DNA fingerprints in chlorophyte algae of different genera and to differentiate isolates of the same species.