The Psychology of Entrepreneurship and the Technological Frontier – A Spatial Econometric Analysis of Regional Entrepreneurship in the United States

Theories of economic growth have long recognized that the majority of growth resultsfrom endogenous changes in technology that emerge from the profit motivateddevelopment of new knowledge. However, recent theorizing has suggested that thecreation of knowledge in and of itself does not directly or immediately translate intochanges in technological productivity as it must first be actively converted from conceptinto means of production. These developments have lead to spatially interdependentmodels of economic growth that are based not only on the development of knowledge butalso on the commercialization and diffusion of it. This dissertation seeks to empiricallyexamine some of the key propositions of these new theoretical models. Specifically, therelationship between productivity and entrepreneurship will be scrutinized with respect tothe technological frontier. As well, the concept of regional psychological capital will beprobed as an explanation for the proclivity of entrepreneurial activity in certain regions.