Institutional Entrepreneurship, Trust, and Regulatory Capture in the Digital Economy

Abstract

In regard to the problem of the new markets' opening and their regulation, some scholars have introduced the concept of “institutional entrepreneur” in economic literature. This new definition of entrepreneur is important to highlight, albeit in informal and descriptive terms, the existence of functional relationships between activities typical of private market competition and those more specifically, of the public sector. Even if this new economic character can provide an interesting key to understanding what can really happen in the narrow zone that separates the public and private markets, it does not consider some conceptual components that are not minor for the purposes of complete characterization. For example, those of reciprocity, trust and capture that put the actions of the entrepreneur in a continuum defined by more or less virtuous (or legal) behaviors. From this point of view this chapter examines these aspects within the digital economic framework.