Economics Bloggers Survey Provides Insights into Recovery Solutions

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Rossana Weitekamp, media relations representative
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Barb Pruitt, Kauffman Foundation
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Kauffman Foundation poll indicates strong support for policies that remove barriers to entrepreneurship

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (April 1, 2009) — America’s top economics bloggers—a diverse group of writers with wide-ranging intellectual and political vantage points—largely agree on one important issue: To help speed the recovery, remove barriers to entrepreneurship. That’s according to survey findings released today by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, which polled some of America’s most well-known economics bloggers, including professional and academic PhD economists and journalists who write and blog about economics issues.

"When you have a chorus of conviction from such diverse thinkers, it sends a powerful message," said Bob Litan, vice president of Research and Policy at the Kauffman Foundation and co-author of Kauffman’s economics blog, Growthology.org. "The bloggers we polled said policies need to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship for the sake of job creation. We hope policymakers will listen."

The survey, which was conducted in conjunction with the Foundation’s first-ever Economics Bloggers Forum, revealed that bloggers believe entrepreneurship will play a key role in repairing the U.S. economy, and that innovation and job creation—the crux of entrepreneurship—are viewed as vitally important to the issue.

The survey participants offered their expertise on what will have the most impact on shaping the United States’ faltering economy; what they viewed as the barriers to starting a new company, including government red tape and a weak economy; and what changes would encourage more Americans to start their own businesses, such as keeping existing health benefits and lower taxes.