This study contributes to the growing body of research on the relationship between founders' age and new venture performance, addressing existing gaps regarding founders approaching or surpassing retirement age. By analyzing comprehensive Swedish administrative data covering all newly incorporated firms and their founders, we first document an inverse U-shaped relationship between founders' age at founding and firm survival, as well as between founders' aging and employment growth. However, our findings reveal significant disruptions in these patterns between ages 60 and 70. Specifically, the relationship between founders' age at founding and firm survival temporarily improves at the conventional retirement age of 65, transitioning into a more nuanced, bimodal M-shaped pattern. In contrast, the relationship between founders' aging and employment growth plateaus around age 65. Using abductive analysis and a regression discontinuity design, we show that the increased firm survival observed after age 65 is influenced by a different selection of entrepreneurs, as individuals with enhanced financial security from pension access, along with previous industry experience and high levels of education, are more likely to start businesses at this stage.

The literature on diversity has grown rapidly in the last decade. Research from different areas has suggested that diversity is a critical factor in creativity, knowledge generation, innovation, and entrepreneurship at the level of organizations, cities, regions, and whole countries. This chapter introduces the topic of diversity and discusses its role for creativity, knowledge production, innovation, entrepreneurship, and growth in the economy. The discussion of diversity is not meant to be a complete review of the current literature, but rather an overview of some of the main arguments in theoretical as well as empirical literature that puts the chapter contributions in context. Another aim of the introductory chapter is to summarize the individual chapter contributions.

For quite some time, research across various fields has highlighted diversity as a critical factor in fostering creativity, knowledge generation, innovation, and entrepreneurship-at the levels of organizations, cities, regions, and entire countries. The aim of this book is to provide a comprehensive overview of the role of diversity in modern advanced economies, appealing to academics, researchers, and advanced students in disciplines such as business, economics, and geography. The volume brings together contributions and perspectives from both economics and business scholars, offering theoretical insights alongside new empirical research that serves as a foundation for policy recommendations. Organized into four parts, the book comprises 16 individual chapters that address the topics of diversity and place development, workforce and labour market diversity, diversity and entrepreneurship, and regional diversity, innovation, and productivity. The introductory chapter complements with a broad discussion on existing research regarding the role of spatial diversity for creativity, knowledge production, innovation, entrepreneurship, and growth in the economy. Throughout the book, diversity is conceptualized as a multi-faceted phenomenon that can be measured and analysed in various dimensions and within different contexts, demonstrating its significant economic impacts at multiple spatial scales.

This paper pays homage to Professor Borje Johansson's scientific contributions in general and to the field of regional science particularly through a bibliometric approach, highlighting his publishing and citation record, co-authors and co-editors, as well as his theoretical inspirators, fellow researchers and often cited researchers.

Using data for over four decades, we examine the ageing of Swedish municipalities and if there has been convergence or divergence across time and space, where we differentiate across the urban–rural hierarchy. As migration is claimed to be a moderating factor in the ageing of places, we assess how the share of immigrants relates to ageing patterns. Our findings show that the share of older individuals increases in more peripheral localities and that there has been convergence across municipalities. However, the share of foreign population is negatively related to the ageing profile of a place.

In this essay, I share my personal and my family’s experiences of living in the middle of a pandemic in Sweden. Interestingly, due to severe health problems in the family, the pandemic for half a year was a non-issue. As a background for my essay, I present information about the diffusion of the coronavirus in Sweden during the three first waves and about the special Swedish strategy to combat the virus. The Swedish strategy was criticized heavily abroad by politicians and media despite that there before the large outbreak of the pandemic in Europe had been a widespread agreement among the state epidemiologists in the EU to follow a strategy to combat the pandemic of the kind Sweden adopted. I also highlight how public policy authority is divided between the government, the central governmental agencies, the regions and the municipalities, which all according to the Swedish constitution have an independent standing and each have their own areas of responsibility. This explains why the governmental agency the Public Health Agency took the lead in the anti-COVID measures in Sweden and not the Swedish government. At the end, I also present my own preliminary personal evaluation of the way the Swedish authorities dealt with the pandemic. 

Most rural areas face a range of challenges stemming from the loss of their traditional comparative advantages due to mechanisation, automation, and structural change. In comparison to urban regions, these areas face systemic structural problems, such as lower levels of formal education, ageing populations, and a low and shrinking market potential. Rural areas therefore tend to offer a less fertile environment for entrepreneurship than urban areas provide. In this chapter, we will explore various aspects of rural entrepreneurship by analysing how the volume of entrepreneurship varies in rural areas in Sweden depending upon the size of the local market potential and the development level of the local economic milieu. We will further share insights into rural entrepreneurship by analysing the relative shares of distinct types of entrepreneurship by separating unincorporated and incorporated firms and distinguishing new firms with multiple employees from one-employee firms.

The special issue provides a stimulating set of results and theories on regional entrepreneurship and its fundamental role for growth and development. Although the spatial component is analyzed from different perspectives, all the papers highlight the importance of the regional differences in ensuring the appropriate design and implementation of policies aimed at unlocking the potential of regions through entrepreneurship and innovation.

In this paper, we review and comment upon the development of the literature on diversity, innovation, and entrepreneurship. In an overview of previous studies and various strands of literatures, we outline and argue that to better understand the intricate dynamic relationships between diversity, innovation, entrepreneurship, and regional development there is a strong need to further develop "the economics of spatial diversity." We further argue that this development may benefit from combining various literatures based upon sound economic micro-foundations, to develop a more absolute understanding of diversity and fulfill the need of more clear mechanisms for future empirical testing. Obviously, this is important both from a research point of view and in order to provide policymakers with a powerful set of analytical tools. We call for more analytical work and more high-quality empirical studies. With a set of papers, we believe this special issue to provide a contribution in this direction.