A Historical Perspective on the Evolution of Finance, Knowledge, and Labor Market Institutions in Europe

Abstract

Both policymakers and academics offer various strategies concerning institutions on how to stimulate entrepreneurial activity in Europe. However, historical evidence shows that the cross-national differences in these institutions are the result of long-term historical processes. A successful entrepreneurial strategy would therefore benefit from looking at the past to build and improve current institutions in the future. To provide such a historical insight, this chapter aims to answer the question: How and to what extent have the institutional factors relevant to entrepreneurial activity evolved over time? It discusses the changes in the financial, knowledge, and labor institutions over the twentieth century across European countries to be able to distinguish between institutions that are dynamic and those that are slowly changing. Using the Varieties of Capitalism (VoC) framework, it provides insight into the different patterns of institutional change and the implications of this change for the different forms of entrepreneurial activity across European countries. The historical approach presented in this chapter thus contributes to the development of more diversified and better-informed policy tools to stimulate entrepreneurship. Keywords Entrepreneurship • Varieties of Capitalism • National institutions • Institutional complementarities The author gratefully acknowledges funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No 649378. Thanks to Axel Marx, Mark Sanders, and Mikael Stenkula for comments on earlier drafts of this chapter.

Entrepreneurship, family and migration: a systematic literature review on Vietnamese migrant entrepreneurship

“…Despite the accessibility to migrant family’s financial resources in the country of residence and origin, migrant entrepreneurs would be more likely to have poor access to formal and large financial institutions (Ram et al , 2008; Tilburg, 2009). Because a fairly large proportion of Vietnamese transnational entrepreneurs are refugees who gradually integrating into the host country from breaking-ice, breaking-in to breaking-out, savings created within the family boundary would supplement the shortage of formal financial resources for the early stage of business running (Dilli and Westerhuis, 2018; Ho and Wong, 2007; Evansluong et al , 2019).…”