Can Positive Entrepreneurship Policies Always Improve Social Welfare?

Abstract The entrepreneurship has positive and significant connection with economic growth. Competition would be increased by new entrants in the market; then, social welfare would be improved. Thus, positive entrepreneurship policies are often linked to increased social welfare by authorities. In this paper, we focus on a certain case where potential entrepreneurs are employees of existing firms to test the above ideas. The purpose of our research is to assess the variation of social welfare in the context of employer-restricted separation. Therefore, the model of Cournot competition where employees constitute the only entry threat was used in this paper. The results demonstrate that social welfare would not always be improved even in a good entrepreneurial context. If the deterring strategy is present, the relationship between positive entrepreneurship policies and increased social welfare might not hold, or would depend on the different strategies adopted by the incumbent. Therefore, the sustainability of a positive entrepreneurship policy would be impaired by incumbent firms.