Introduction: Entrepreneurship and Global Competitiveness in Regional Economies: Determinants and Policy Implications

At a time when policymakers and macroeconomists are frantically searching for actions that could spur economic growth, avoid stagnation, and encourage job creation, entrepreneurship again is the focus of attention. This is as it must be. Entrepreneurship leads to new products, new processes, new ways of doing things that break an economy from old patterns, those that are not providing greater wellbeing and addressing critical economic and social demands. Concurrently, the post-2008 era has seen a strong emergence and boundaries of new economic geographies. Regions are organizing to be globally competitive while drawing on regional actors, characteristics, and functions of local innovation environments and systems. This shift brings a new set of opportunities and challenges associated with region-specific cultural, political, and economic environmental interactions, as well as its relationship to broader economic forces. Although regional economy is not a new topic, there is a need for a new perspective on these this issue that more carefully includes entrepreneurship.