American Shockwave: Entrepreneurial Capitalism and Its Global Impact

(Hardback)

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Shienbaum argues that the New Economy of innovation, entrepreneurship, and competition was catalyzed by 1970s and 1980s federal policymaking encouraging those salutary market behaviors. Challenging conventional wisdom, Shienbaum argues that the U.S. federal government, not the private sector, created the dynamic New Economy. Declining economic competitiveness and relative global underperformance during the 1970s and early 1980s threatened America's post-war global leadership position, a role Washington was loath to relinquish, especially during the Cold War. Citing these threats to American leadership and security, government officials set out to make the U.S. economy more competitive by creating innovative technology policies combined with policies providing strong incentives to new entrants while removing regulatory protections from more established companies. The federal government, in other words, nurtured fragile high-tech start-ups while forcing larger companies to compete in the marketplace, in the process transforming "regulatory" capitalism into an "entrepreneurial" capitalism marked by innovation, entrepreneurship, and competition. Shienbaum's book will be of interest to political scientists, policy makers, economists, and lay readers wanting to discover the causal factors that created the conditions for the unprecedented economic boom of the 1990s. Furthermore, by explicitly connecting government policy making to economic change, Shienbaum reminds us of the basic but often-ignored truth that politics and economics are inescapably linked together. She concludes with a clear-eyed discussion of the limits of entrepreneurial capitalism and the forces lining up to oppose the New Economy.

Reviews

"Economic development professionals will be thrilled to see this affirmation from a political scientist about the importance of government. What most 'New Economy' economists forget is that Washington, by actively supporting entrepreneurial new entrants, laid the foundations for the technology and innovation-led 'New Economy'....Economists don't like others treading in their territory. Kim Shienbaum has shown us all that Political Science has much to offer when examining economic policy, particularly when our pluralistic democracy pushed us into the 'New Economy' through 'Entrepreneurial Capitalism.'"-Paul Raetsch Regional Director Economic Development Administration U.S. Department of Commerce
"This book will be a real eye opener for readers who believed Bill Gates or John Chambers to be the architects of the new economy. Scholarly but eminently readable, Entrepreneurial Capitalism and its Global Impact appears destined to be discussed in boardrooms for years to come."-Ralph Feldberg Partner Value Partners

Author Bio

KIM EZRA SHIENBAUM is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University's Camden Campus and has written on a variety of subjects ranging from American Elections to the American Presidency.