Dissertation Discovery Company Entrepreneurship in The United States of America: Antecedents and Consequences Following the Great Recession

Abstract: This dissertation challenges entrepreneurial economics by proposing a novel model based on entrepreneurial outcomes and coincidental institutional quality indicators. The research empirically assesses the impacts of prominent entrepreneurial activities and their interaction with economic and personal freedoms to create financial benefit in the context of the declining U.S. dynamism following the Great Recession. This study decomposes and combines the Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity, the Economic Freedom of North America and the Freedom in the 50 States of America in relationship to U.S. economic outcomes. Random-effects estimations of a panel data set of publicly available data reflecting explanatory variables for the 50 states for the years 2008 through 2016 suggest that sustaining traditional main street business activity and increasing above-average growth of entrepreneurial businesses exercise a positive and statistically significant influence on state financial well-being.Empirical evidence is presented to support the hypothesis that financial prosperity results from positive entrepreneurial activity coincident with increasing economic freedom(s) after allowing for a variety of other factors, ceteris paribus. Labor freedom at the state level has the most significant influence on positive entrepreneurial outcomes. Neither the rate of startup activity alone nor changes in personal freedom are found to influence financial benefits from entrepreneurship for U.S. States. The estimation results suggest entrepreneurial activity explains approximately 32% of the variation in real per capita gross state product. Dissertation Discovery Company and Jacksonville University are dedicated to making scholarly works more discoverable and accessible throughout the world. This dissertation, "Entrepreneurship in The United States of America" by James A. Simak, was obtained from Jacksonville University and is being sold with permission from the author. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation.