William B. Walstad

This book investigates the vital role of entrepreneurship in the Nebraska economy. It presents the business and economic conditions that affect entrepreneurship in both the short and long run. Using Gallup’s extensive survey findings, it reveals the attitudes of small business owners and the general public about such topics as starting a business, entrepreneurship education, economic development, and business transition and succession. These entrepreneurial conditions and attitudes are examined in different regions of Nebraska to provide an in-depth understanding of the climate for entrepreneurship. The final chapter of the book describes actions that can be taken to maintain the state’s dynamic and competitive economy to foster growth, job creation, and expanded wealth and philanthropy. This book’s scope and comprehensive analysis can serve as a model for any state to use to advance its entrepreneurship.

The Entrepreneur in Youth offers one of the most comprehensive assessments to date of African American, Latino, and white high school students' aspirations, knowledge, opinions and educational views related to entrepreneurship and philanthropy. A key strength is its longitudinal approach to analysis and interpretations, made possible by extensive surveys of over 11,000 respondents from high school youth and other groups, including adults and business owners. The key findings exhibit an extraordinarily high level of interest in entrepreneurship among youth as well as a strong desire to give back to their communities. However, they lack the knowledge and experience to achieve their aspirations. The book's major recommendations and guidelines include challenges to education and other policymakers to expand and enhance opportunities to access entrepreneurship education and early entrepreneurship mentoring shadowing experiences - especially for those who demand it the most: African Americans and Latinos. Meeting these challenges not only will contribute to economic growth and social reform initiatives but also will increase economic and social mobility and access to opportunity for a still largely untapped pool of future entrepreneurs. This book will appeal to academics in entrepreneurship, economics, business and education, as well as policymakers, educators and business leaders.

This comprehensive and impressive volume presents the first book-length, multi-country investigation of reform of economic education in transition economies. Authors from the West and from transition economies describe the major changes in economics content and instruction that occurred in schools and universities throughout nations in Eastern and Central Europe and the former Soviet Union from 1989 to 2000. Nine of the chapters discuss specific countries - Belarus, Bulgaria, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Russia, and Ukraine. Other chapters describe reforms in the undergraduate economics curriculum at Moscow State University, Kiev State University, and Belarus State University. One chapter reports the findings from a five-nation study of the effect of economics programs to retrain teachers on the economic understanding of secondary students. Another chapter explains the important role of economic education in creating support for public policy reforms in a nation. The results from multi-national surveys of public attitudes toward economic reforms and the market economy are analyzed in one chapter. The book concludes with an insightful explanation of the major 'change agents' responsible for the reform of academic economics and the teaching of economics in the transition economies. Anyone interested in economic education, transition economies, or educational reform in schools and universities will find this book a unique and fascinating reading.