伊斯雷尔·柯兹纳对企业家精神研究的贡献——科睿唯安“引文桂冠”经济学奖得主学术贡献评介

Contributions of Israel M.Kirzner to Research on Entrepreneurship

伊斯雷尔·柯兹纳是创业发现与市场过程理论的代表性学者。柯兹纳研究指出,市场过程具有“无知”与“发现”两个基本特征,市场非均衡状态因参与方“无知”而存在,企业家的“纯粹无知”并非是主流经济学模型的“不完全信息”,企业家对非均衡利润机会持有高度的“创业警觉”,市场由非均衡走向均衡的过程与针对企业家“无知”的纠正性“发现”有关,是企业家的“创业警觉”所产生的一系列“创业发现”推动了市场运行的过程。与创业不确定性的承担者角色相比,柯兹纳式企业家更侧重于套利者角色。柯兹纳强调创业对经济增长的重要推动作用,但认为不能将企业家精神如同资本与劳动力要素一样引入经典的经济增长模型。企业纯利润属于企业家凭借自己的“创业警觉”与“创业发现”获得的报酬,不允许企业家攫取纯利润相当于取消创业激励。柯兹纳通过引入企业家精神提出的“可均衡性”学说及对市场均衡化过程的解析,构成了柯兹纳式市场过程,为奥地利学派非均衡论与主流经济学均衡论架起了沟通桥梁。

Israel M.Kirzner is a representative scholar in the field of entrepreneurial discovery and market process theory.Kirzner's research indicates that the market process has two fundamental characteristics,ignorance and discovery.Disequilibrium in the market exists due to the"ignorance"of participants.The"pure ignorance"of entrepreneurs is not the same as the"incomplete information"in mainstream economic models.Entrepreneurs possess a high"entrepreneurial alertness"towards non-equilibrium profit opportunities.The process of the market moving from disequilibrium to equilibrium is related to the corrective"discovery"in response to the"ignorance"of entrepreneurs.It is a series of"entrepreneurial discoveries"driven by the"entrepreneurial alertness"of entrepreneurs that promotes market operation.Compared to the role of risk-bearer in dealing with entrepreneurial uncertainty,Kirznerian entrepreneur prefers to play the role of arbitrageur.Kirzner emphasizes the important role of entrepreneurship in economic growth but believes that the entrepreneurship should not be treated as a factor of production like capital and labor in classical economic growth models.Pure profits of firms belong to the rewards obtained by entrepreneurs through their"entrepreneurial alertness"and"entrepreneurial discoveries",Disallowing entrepreneurs to capture pure profits would be equivalent to eliminating entrepreneurial incentives.The equilibrative idea and the analysis of the process of market equilibration constitute the Kirznerian market process,bridging the gap between the Austrian economics of disequilibrium and the mainstream economics of equilibrium.