Back up

I had hoped to leave this blog as a standalone representation of our time in China after we left Beijing. But the economic downturn has forced me to reconsider our decision in light of impending unemployment and what little brand equity remains in the name "Boulder2Beijing." So I've decided to start blogging again and take it one step further: we now have a custom domain, and can be reached at Boulder2Beijing.com. (Unfortunately, the new domain has messed up some of the photos below, but I'll clean those up later.)

What have we been doing in the interim? Well, Katie is keeping busy with IP litigation. I, on the other hand, have been working on a consulting project for the Governor's Innovation Council here in Colorado. Now that the project is wrapping up, though, it has gotten me thinking.

There's a strong relationship between law and entrepreneurship in the United States. When states increase homestead exemptions, banks reduce the amount of money that they are willing to loan entrepreneurs, which impacts the ability of start-ups that want to retain capital. California's refusal to honor non-compete agreements allows entrepreneurs to float freely within Silicon Valley, starting companies without fear of a former employer coming after them for a cut of licensing revenue or a company. Tax policies encourage venture capital to flow to the start-ups who need it. And the Bayh-Dole Act allows universities to obtain patents on innovations based upon government-funded research, leading to an explosion of licensing and spin-offs in and around higher education in the United States.

There's also a pretty clear relationship between education and entrepreneurship in the U.S. Entrepreneurs with college degrees start businesses that produce growth, employment, and opportunities. As Scott Shane recently pointed out, entrepreneurs that never finished college tend to start businesses that never employ more than one person and tend to pay less than working for someone else. Because most entrepreneurs fall into the latter category, 47 businesses have to start over the course of a decade to get just one enterprise with ten employees.

China presents an interesting case, however, because of how the PRC regulates education. Relative to other sectors of the economy, education in China bears more of a resemblance to Soviet-style command-and-control of the Mao era than the more modern regime that governs business and IP. Perhaps for this reason, Chinese innovation has stagnated relative to other areas of the economy, as reflected in the NDRC's recent "Medium- to Long-Term National Plan for Independent Innovation." One has to wonder, then, how laws on education and innovation impact Chinese entrepreneurship and, in turn, economic growth.

With dissertation deadlines just around the corner, I have opted to focus on this question. I will post sections on this blog as I write them, and I invite your feedback, should you have any. I just hope someone still subscribes to my RSS feeds...