"ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND FIRMS' MOBILITY"

Entrepreneurial activity is one of the major issues in regional economic analysis. Although its determinants and consequences are multiple and complex, most studies focus on individual factors or face the work from an aggregate level. These approaches assume that a representative agent —by maximising its utility— solves a social problem with which it is faced. However, this neglects the fact that the economy is a complex and evolving system made up of diverse and heterogeneous interacting agents. As a result, such models present major shortcomings, which justify the need to find a new methodology to model entrepreneurship and firms’ dynamics that will make it possible to study in detail and forecast the effects that economic policies have on the business sector. From the perspective of entrepreneurship and business activity, this paper introduces an agentbased model (ABM) in order to analyse the effects of policies within the behaviour, decisions and interactions dynamics of firms and individuals. Therefore, two basic types of agents are considered: individuals and firms. The individuals belong to a society made up of households and they act as entrepreneurs–businessperson that create firms. Firms have their own dynamics and adopt decisions as far as their approach of economic and business performance. Building on the main trends and theories of entrepreneurship and business activity, this model analyses and forecasts, first, how the entrepreneurial spirit is shaped, which are the determinants that reinforce it, and what is the propensity to become an entrepreneur. And secondly, the choice of the characteristics of the firm and its development, taking into account the decisions on optimising in terms of location.