| Abstract: | “Entrepreneurial” economic development strategies at the state level in the United States, which focus on nurturing home‐grown, high‐growth businesses, lack immediate payoffs for politically powerful constituencies, a condition that would seem likely to limit their appeal compared to the alternative “locational” strategy of attracting large investments from elsewhere. Nonetheless, many U.S. states have added programs with entrepreneurial attributes to their economic development portfolios in recent years. This paper explores how the political obstacles to such programs have been overcome. In a few cases, an institutional innovation in the policy‐making process drew in new participants who provided ideas for and support to programs with entrepreneurial attributes. More commonly, the preferences of executive branch officials, especially governors, appear to have been critical to the enactment and implementation of such programs. This finding suggests that economic development policy making may be more technocratic than is commonly believed. |
