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The Entrepreneurial Economy I: Contracting under Knightian Uncertainty
Working paper

The Entrepreneurial Economy I: Contracting under Knightian Uncertainty

Massimiliano Amarante, Mario Ghossoub and Edmund S. Phelps
Center on Capitalism and Society Working Papers, Vol.68
Columbia University
09/21/2017
DOI: 10.7916/d82v2tm1

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Abstract

This is the first of a series of papers in which we address the questions How do capitalist systems generate their dynamism and Why a capitalist economy is inherently different from a centrally planned one. We believe that, in order to study these issues, we must thoroughly reconsider the role played by entrepreneurs and financiers in actual economies. We claim that this role has been grossly misrepresented in classical theories, mainly because of the way the "uncertainty" is modeled. We begin by proposing a new definition of "innovation". This differs from any other definition previously given in the literature and reveals at once the inadequacy of the current theoretical paradigm. In fact, it shows that (a) Knightian uncertainty rather than Risk plays a crucial role in capitalist economies; (b) that two groups of agents, entrepreneurs and financiers, play a special role in that they deal with Knightian uncertainty; (c) that a crucial difference between centrally planned and capitalist systems might reside in the latter's ability to deal with Knightian uncertainty. The final part of this paper focuses on the role of entrepreneurs and financiers as micro actors. There, we study the problem of two parties contracting in a situation of Knightian Uncertainty. This is widely recognized as a very difficult problem, which has not been solved despite several attempts. Here, we solve the problem in a special case, which is nonetheless sufficient for our purposes.
 Capitalism Economics Entrepreneurship Capitalists and financiers Central planning Uncertainty--Economic aspects

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