Smells Like Teen Spirit

Tyler Cowen argues that the relatively unstructured lives of U.S. teenagers along with the "commercial, competitive, philanthropic, nonegalitarian and open nature of American society" ensure that "America’s economic head start probably won’t go away anytime soon":

The Loose Reins on U.S. Teenagers Can Produce Trouble or Entrepreneurs, by Tyler Cowen, Economic Scene, NY Times: Michael S. Dell (of Dell Inc.) sold stamps to collectors when he was 12 and Bill Gates founded Microsoft when he was 19. Facebook, the social networking site, was the brainchild of Mark Zuckerberg, a Harvard University sophomore at the time. A study by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor showed that the United States was unusual among developed countries in having a higher business start-up rate among its 18- to 24-year-olds than its 35- to 44-year-olds.

But why has America produced so many successful young entrepreneurs? ... [read more] ...