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Gouvin, Eric J. --- "Of Small Businesses and Entrepreneurs: Toward a Public Policy that Supports New Venture Formation" [2012] ELECD 544; in Carpenter, M. Megan (ed), "Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Evolving Economies" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012)

Book Title: Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Evolving Economies

Editor(s): Carpenter, M. Megan

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9780857934697

Section: Chapter 3

Section Title: Of Small Businesses and Entrepreneurs: Toward a Public Policy that Supports New Venture Formation

Author(s): Gouvin, Eric J.

Number of pages: 21

Extract:

3. Of small businesses and
entrepreneurs: toward a public
policy that supports new venture
formation
Eric J. Gouvin*

INTRODUCTION

The United States likes to think of itself as a nation of entrepreneurs. We
idolize people whose rags-to-riches life stories seem to track the storyline
of the fictional hero Horatio Alger.1 Our popular culture tends to mythol-
ogize the entrepreneurial experience. In the popular mind, entrepreneurs
get to be their own boss, set their own hours, follow their passion, and, of
course, make a lot of money. The romantic notion of entrepreneurship is
so attractive the idea of the "entrepreneur" has mutated from being a way
to refer to someone who identifies and exploits an economic prospect to
being someone who develops any kind of idea or opportunity.2
Indeed, we are so fond of entrepreneurship that a recent survey found
a majority of Americans have either started a business or thought about
starting one.3 Of course, thinking about starting a business is a lot easier


* ©2011 The author thanks the participants at the Evolving Economies
Conference at Texas Wesleyan Law School and his research assistant, Michael
Stein.
1 Bernard Sarachek, American Entrepreneurs and the Horatio Alger Myth, 38

J. Econ. Hist., issue 2, 439­56 (1978) (analyzing the actual life experiences of 20th
century entrepreneurs and finding that although many successful entrepreneurs
were drawn from the elite classes and were not true "rags to riches" stories, they did
often overcome some kind of adversity on their ...