2019 Boyan Jovanovic – Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research

New York University

For pioneering research that advances our understanding of the competitive dynamics between incumbent firms and new ventures, entrepreneurial learning and selection processes, and the importance of entrepreneurship for the economy.

Motivation

Professor Boyan Jovanovic’s research is original and influential in at least three areas: why some people become entrepreneurs, the competitive dynamics between incumbent firms and new entrepreneurial firms, and the importance of entrepreneurship for the economy.

A major methodological contribution of Jovanovic is the integration of entrepreneurship into dynamic mathematical models and general equilibrium analyses of the labor market, thereby incorporating the role of entrepreneurship at a more aggregate level. In addition, Professor Jovanovic has provided important results on fundamental topics related to occupational choice, entry, exit, learning among firms, technology diffusion, income distribution, and economic growth.

Of particular interest, Jovanovic’s work explains the role of entrepreneurial entrants in exploring new ways of producing and distributing goods and services in a setting in which they do not know how competitive they are until they start operating. Over time, efficient new firms learn, survive and grow, while inefficient firms fail, improving the average efficiency of surviving firms. Thus, Jovanovic links entrepreneurial endeavors to how industries are organized as well as to macroeconomic outcomes, thereby enriching our understanding of the entrepreneurial function in the economy.

One of Jovanovic’s outstanding insights concerns the complex interdependencies between labor market sorting, through which some individuals become entrepreneurs and others become employees, and knowledge allocation under conditions of uncertainty and asymmetric information. The outcome of such processes influences innovation, technological change, industrial churning, the distribution of human capital, and growth; none of this, according to Professor Jovanovic, would have happened without entrepreneurs.

You can listen to a podcast with Boyan Jovanovic here.

See a summary from the 2019 Award Ceremony.

Titles, dates and places given above refer to the time of the Award.