Author Description

This is the first systematic economic study of the nature, operation and contribution of entrepreneurship to the growth of Hong Kong. From a new entrepreneurial perspective of economic development, the author argues that the success of Hong Kong is attributable principally to adaptive entrepreneurship: * product imitation, * small scale enterprise, * subcontracting, * spatial arbitrage. Using these entrepreneurial strategies, local manufacturers learned from foreign firms and imitated their products. By selling improved commodities at lower prices, they competed against the original suppliers from more advanced countries. Being alert to opportunities and responding rapidly to change, Hong Kong's entrepreneurs shifted their production activities from one product to another; from higher cost to lower cost regions; from traditional fishing and agriculture to manufacturing, and then to finance and other services. These entrepreneurial activities have brought about structural transformation in Hong Kong's economy, enabling the country to compete with advanced economies. This study concludes that any policy recommendation on economic development should be based on analysis that incorporates entrepreneurship and provides a reappraisal of the role of government in economic development.