Alertness, Judgment, and the Antecedents of Entrepreneurship

This paper offers a critical perspective on Israel Kirzner’s basic analytical framework. Specifically, we characterize Kirzner’s emphasis on processes of equilibration as a departure from the causal-realist price theory developed by Menger and his nineteenth- and twentieth-century followers. In this context, we contrast Kirzner’s interpretation of entrepreneurship as discovery with a more realistic, and operationally meaningful, idea of entrepreneurship as action. Finally, we discuss an inconsistency in Kirzner’s treatment of the antecedents of entrepreneurial behavior.