International development is increasingly dependent on the entrepreneurship of local citizens. In this panel discussion, experts Robert Litan, Vivek Wadhwa, and Ward Hanson consider how societies can be induced to become more entrepreneurial, the degree to which the U.S. model can be exported, and the role of governments and venture capital in this process. They also discuss how any conflict between labor and social policies on the one hand, and industrial and science policies on the other, may be bridged. The issues explored have important implications for the field of international development. The panel was part of a conference convened by the Hoover Institute at Stanford and sponsored by the Stanford Center for Social Innovation.
Ward Hanson studies the economics and marketing of high technology, especially information technology and energy innovation. He is a SIEPR fellow as well as SIEPR policy forum director. Hanson received his PhD in economics from Stanford University, and has been on the faculty of the University of Chicago Business School, Purdue University School of Management, and Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. He has served in the U.S. Department of Energy.
Robert E. Litan is the vice president for research and policy at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City and a senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution. He has served as associate director of the Office of Management and Budget, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, and member of the President's Council of Economic Advisers. Litan received his BS in economics, summa cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania, his JD from Yale Law School, and both his MPhil and PhD in economics from Yale.
Vivek Wadhwa is a senior research associate with the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School, executive in residence/adjunct professor at the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University, and a visiting scholar at UC-Berkeley. He started his career as a software developer and has founded two software companies. He is founding president of the Carolinas chapter of The IndUS Entrepreneurs (TIE), a nonprofit global network intended to foster entrepreneurship. Wadhwa holds a BA in computing studies from the Canberra University in Australia and an MBA from NYU.
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