Place-Based Policies and Entrepreneurship
There are vast disparities in the rate, scale and scope of new business formation within the United States and across countries. Why are some regions engines of innovation and new business formation, while others lag behind? To advance research on these issues, the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), with the generous support of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, will host a conference on December 3–4, 2026 in Cambridge, MA. It will be organized by NBER affiliates Sabrina Howell and Josh Lerner (Harvard Business School) and David Robinson (Duke University). The meeting will provide a venue for researchers to present and discuss new research on the determinants of differences in entrepreneurial activity across places, demographic groups and industries, and of the impact of public policies and other factors on entrepreneurship. The organizers welcome work that is regional or international in scope, as well as research that pursues measurement, empirical analyses, and/or applied theory.
The organizers welcome research papers as well as extended abstracts for papers that will be finished by December, 2026. The papers presented at the conference will be considered for inclusion in a special NBER conference volume to be published by the University of Chicago Press (UCP). All papers will be subject to review by the editors and referees from the NBER and the UCP. Please upload research papers and extended abstracts by 11:59pm EST on Monday, March 16, 2026 via the following link:
Extended abstracts should explain what the proposed project will study, how it fits into the literature, and what data and methods will be used. Papers that have been accepted for journal publication are not eligible for consideration. The organizers encourage submissions from scholars who are early in their careers and who are not NBER affiliates.
Authors of papers selected for the conference will be invited to a pre-conference in Cambridge on Sunday, July 19, 2026—the day before the Entrepreneurship Working Group meeting. At least one author on each paper will be expected to attend this pre-conference, since it will provide an opportunity to receive input and feedback from an assigned discussant.
The NBER will cover economy class travel and hotel expenses for one author per paper for both the pre-conference and the final conference. Questions may be addressed to confer@nber.org.