Overcoming Barriers to Entrepreneurship compiles academic discussions of real and perceived barriers to the founding and running of small businesses in America. Each chapter illustrates how policy and economic environment can hinder business owners, and suggests what can be done to help them. Starting with venture capital access in Silicon Valley during the Internet bubble, the book goes on to question the link between personal wealth and entrepreneurship, to investigate how federal tax rates effect small-business creation and destruction, to explain the low rate of self-employment among Mexican immigrants, and to suggest how pension coverage can be increased in small businesses. Concluding with an attempt to qualify what makes an entrepreneur, Overcoming Barriers to Entrepreneurship argues that policymakers need not create incentives for entrepreneurs to create new businesses, though there is a great deal they can do to encourage entrepreneurs by removing legal and economic roadblocks to business creation.

Contributions by: Donald J. Bruce, Tami Gurley-Calvez, William E. Even, Robert W. Fairlie, Diana Furchtgott-Roth, Erik Hurst, Annamaria Lusardi, David A. Macpherson, Eric Meltzer, Christopher M. Woodruff, Junfu Zhang