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Social entrepreneurs engage in action because social entrepreneurs want to solve social problems. Consequently, to see more social entrepreneurship in contexts with the most severe social problems is expected. This paper argues that this is an oversimplification of the problem-action nexus in social entrepreneurship and that action does not necessarily correspond to the observed scale of social problems. Drawing on the theoretical framing of crescive conditions, this relationship is affected by forms of public investment as institutions that distinctively promote engagement and public interest amongst social entrepreneurs. Thus, this paper assesses the relationship between varying levels of social problems and social entrepreneurship action (SEA) and how and to what extent public investment types – as more and less locally anchored crescive conditions – affect this relationship.