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We introduce a formula for the optimal savings rate in an economy driven by an investment policy reflecting competitive equilibrium. The reasonable numbers generated by the formula should be of help not only to assess our present situation but also to prepare our future. Moreover, this chapter provides two theorems correcting a widely held belief in economic growth theory, namely that a steady state defined by income per person growing at the labor-augmenting rate can be asymptotically reached only if technical progress is labor-augmenting. We finally show that the magnitudes of the optimal savings rates are highly robust to very different, S-shaped evolutions of population and technology. The chapter closes with a daring conjecture.

Homelessness has many causes and also is stigmatized in the United States, leading to much misunderstanding of its causes and what policy solutions may ameliorate the problem. The problem is of course getting worse and impacting many communities far removed from the West Coast cities the authors examine in this study. This analysis examines the socioeconomic variables influencing homelessness on the West Coast in recent years. The authors utilize a panel fixed effects model that explicitly includes measures of healthcare access and availability to account for the additional health risks faced by individuals who lack shelter. The authors estimate a spatial error model (SEM) in order to better understand the impacts that systemic shocks, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, have on a variety of factors that directly influence productivity and other measures of welfare such as income inequality, housing supply, healthcare investment, and homelessness.

William J. Baumol was one of the most prolific economists of his generation, analyzing a broad range of central economic issues addressing real problems of the world. In this essay, we present and critically evaluate Baumol’s research contributions in entrepreneurship economics and point to areas for future research. Baumol contributed an impressive number of important insights, increasing our understanding of entrepreneurship from both a macro and a micro perspective. He also devoted a large part of his writings to discussing public policy, linking his theoretical insights with policy issues in practice. His analyses are rooted in contemporary mainstream neoclassical economics, and one of his main objectives was to integrate the entrepreneur into this tradition. Today, Baumol is best known for his tripartite distinction between productive, unproductive, and destructive entrepreneurship and his associated idea that the institutional framework, “the rules of the game,” will determine how entrepreneurs allocate their time and effort across different – productive or unproductive – activities. An institutional environment that encourages productive entrepreneurship and spontaneous experimentation while disincentivizing unproductive activities becomes, through this insightful lens, the driving force of economic growth. As an economist, Baumol was knowledgeable and well acquainted with earlier scholars and their writings about entrepreneurship. Baumol’s writings were greatly inspired by Joseph Schumpeter’s views on entrepreneurship, and he made several attempts to formalize Schumpeter’s concept of the innovative entrepreneur. Baumol was in all senses an innovative contributor to entrepreneurship economics. His work has inspired the research community of entrepreneurship scholars, but like all great scientists, he also encountered criticism. His effort to integrate entrepreneurship into the mainstream theory of the firm was only partly successful.

This chapter is a radical critique of the neoclassical growth theory, justifying ways out of mainstream economics. It has three parts. The first one analyzes growth theories from the Classical representation to the endogenous growth models. The second part demonstrates that the “new growth theory” is not a break with Solow's formalization. To prove it, we build an original Solowian endogenous growth model. Then, this neoclassical macrodynamic framework is technically, deeply critized in a third part. We show that both exogenous and endogenous neoclassical models prove to be incapable to explain growth in the long period. We concentrate on the ambiguities surrounding the hypothesis of single agent, as well as on the role of the state, in particular when it is considered as a “planner” by the neoclassicals. Endogenous growth models do not correspond to macrodynamization of the Walrasian general equilibrium, nor have solid microeconomic bases. We advocate in favor of rehabilitating state's intervention in social areas and of reactivating Marxist theoretical reflections regarding social planning and class analysis in the current time of structural crisis of the capitalist world system.