Date:	Wednesday, 24th March 2010 - 17:30:00
	Speaker:	Professor Thijs ten Raa
	Venue:	Lawley Lecture Theatre Kingston Hill Campus

'Invention, Entrepreneurship and Prosperity: Lessons from The Dutch Golden Age'

Professor Thijs ten Raa, Tilburg University, Netherlands

Abstract

A society that fosters innovation and entrepreneurship creates prosperity for its people.

Contributions of entrepreneurship to prosperity can transcend standard categories of creation of new products and processes. Entrepreneurship seeks new markets for its products and attempts to create new modes of trade.

Professor ten Raa’s research gains insight from the performance of the Dutch economy from before the Dutch Golden Age (1540) to well after (1807).

Based on accounting data that are unique in those early times, the study finds that innovations, and two facets of trade, openness and entrepreneurship, played a defining role in the rise and decline of the economy of the Dutch Republic.

Bio

Thijs ten Raa is Associate Professor of Economics at Tilburg University, the Netherlands and has also been affiliated with New York University and Erasmus University, Rotterdam. He has published seven books and numerous articles in professional journals. In 2006 he shared the Wassily Leontief Centennial Medal with Professors Klein and Solow.

This important keynote lecture from an eminent professor offers lessons that are highly relevant to the current international market place and will be of interest to students, academics and practitioners in economics, business, entrepreneurship, law and accounting.